


The Lovers (VI)

by Tarredion



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Cooking, Crying, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Food, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Mythology References, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parents, Realization, Rejection, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Kisses, Slow Burn, Swearing, Vomiting, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000, parent!phan, past rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 12:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22969945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarredion/pseuds/Tarredion
Summary: Dan, guardian of the forest, feels inadequate to love and of love. His best friend Phil loves him despite that.. but doesn't know quite what to do when Dan becomes a hypocrite- playing with both their feelings
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transdimensional_void](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw food, Tw fear of rejection, Tw accusation of manipulation (no actual manipulation)  
> -  
> see vocabulary at the end

Across the aquamarine water a properly doe-eyed, brush-haired deer stands frozen in time, wistfully eyeing the wary hunter on the opposite side from it. Its ears flap and its tail wags, nose twitching as it snaps up the acute smell of danger, but it’s not quite yet afraid. 

The mystical, musky odor of the forest mingles with a thick silver mist and the enhanced instincts of a blessed animal, tracing the path of an ancient ritual. Fear stems from both hunter and hunted, predator and prey, as they and the unmoving trees engage in a deadly dance older than any tales told, and the times themselves.

The brook skips on as the brown smudge darts off into the tangled woods, leaving the trembling man on his own, crouched and sweaty, to simply lower his loosened bow. Worn and jugged, an oak arrow sticks out from the weathered bark. Bad luck.

Eventually letting go of his tense pose and anxiety, the hunter slumps on the ground with a deep sigh, accepting defeat, his brown curls a tender mess upon his tan head. 

Dan is his name, and he roams these mythical lands whenever sleep comes hard to him- like tonight, and many other nights before it. He’s a forest nymph -with a wide hole in his back like a rotten tree-, a magic user, and one who guards the Caledonian Forest as well as its domains.

Wiping his brow, he gazes into the depths of the pineclad path the deer disappeared along in its hurry. Thoughts wash upon him in the silence, like the waves of the river or the roll of a waterfall down a cliff. He wonders what he thought was so great about his idea in the first place, come all the risks involved in hunting alone in the dark. And using an unfamiliar bow involuntarily borrowed -stolen- from your best friend.

_ Especially  _ using an unfamiliar bow involuntarily borrowed -stolen- from your best friend!

A chunk of the emptiness filling his wandering mind to the brim is replaced by a gnawing sense of shame and guilt, for he really does care much for Phil. Whether Phil is worried awake right now about him too his up to debate, but it’s safe to say he doesn’t want to be the cause of that, anyhow. Phil already worries too much, and even too much for an elf. 

The wind senses his spiralling emotions, picking up speed and carrying and acidic, putry smell, having it rattle the leaves. Dan’s eyes, brown like the forest around him, and soft in the nonexistent light, bore into the rugged charcoal fabric which clad his thighs. One finger absentmindedly strokes gentle circles on the surface, and he drags out his decision-making by boiling his thoughts up, pink tongue poking out between pristine, pearlescent teeth.

Branches above Dan’s head explode in a shower of green as a raven takes flight in the night.

Jumping up with the bow and the quiver clenched in his fists, he eyes the blanket dotted with stars with wary as intense as during the hunt, a sorrow passing his irises in a brief moment of vulnerability. No response is transmitted from the natural nor the spiritual side of the world, but Dan doesn’t sit back down.

Instead he steadies himself against a leaning birch tree, his breath and racing heart following suit in his quest for rest before a final spur. The final spur of the day; or night, really. 

He turns his back on the brook, and begins to run.

The dulled surroundings whizz past in a haze, reflecting in greens and greys of many shades upon smooth rocks littered about, just like the glowing night sky -which has now sunk into a pink hue-, and in the pools of dew and rainwater he passes on his way. His way back home.

It doesn’t take long for the familiar winding paths to reach lands he knows well. Even more so than the forest he roams. Clearings and meadows filled with marigold appear more and more frequently as the horizon far away begins to tint gold, and the widened gaps in the trees are replaced by hills and billowing yellow wheat. Colours bless his eyes which he did not see when he made his way away. A crack splits the bark and rocky terrain, inviting open land. 

A circle of lonely trees, half-hidden behind the curve of a hill, stand tall in the distance of the fields. It towers above a rising spiral of smoke, alerting Dan of not only life, but also reminding him a warm breakfast will always welcome him by sunrise. And he knows he will be eternally grateful for that.

He doesn’t know today is such a day that he’ll remember why.

⁂

Phil flips the pan elegantly, watching the oily pancake sail through the air with a look of glee. Cooking and baking are his favourite things to do, and he’s rather good at it, like how nimble he is with his plants. It’s similar to Dan’s affinity to nature and how to work with and protect it.

When Dan left in the middle of the night, he had not stirred, yet concern had washed with the tide into his psychic dreams, and the air in his mystical mind forest -strangely enough a carbon copy of Dan’s favourite part of the Caledonian- had become thick and stuffy. Silence woke him then, unbelievably enough, and in his restlessness he decided to clench thirst, hunger, and loneliness in one go by preparing breakfast.

A breakfast that’s unfortunately Dan’s favourite too, meaning Phil not only has to think of his best friend’s absence, but also spend extra effort and energy to prepare double the meal. 

Not that he’s actually complaining about doing so: having breakfast with Dan is absolutely a highlight of the day, and the only consequence is the lovesick troubling and grumbling he goes through each and every time.

Bittersweet, the breeze rattles the windows of their shared quaint cottage, ducking in and out of each crevice it finds in the swirly wooden facade. They painted the exterior of their small house pastel pink three summers ago, but it has already faded to reveal the birch beneath it, subject to the intense weather conditions of the highlands.

Rain droplets roll and fall, splashing on the ground. It’s a reminance of the gloom storm that passed during the wee hours of this very morning, which has now been replaced by golden light. 

The bright, saffron, leafless autumn came upon the two of them each year with a package deal of thunder, lightning, rain in the night, and a constant mist sunk upon the moor and the forest. At the very least the harvest’s always luscious, even if Phil sometimes has to use his potions and help it out a little bit.

He chuckles to himself as he pulls equipment out of the cupboards, putting them to use during his escapade. He knows Dan will scold him for leaving all the doors open, but they both silently love the sniggers it creates. That’s one thing they’ve talked about. There are many they have not.

The cauldron bubbles green and teal as Phil stirs it clockwise, and once he turns the spatula the opposite way the surface smooths, the concoction turning a soft, creamy violet. The smell that rises in swirls makes his mouth water, and at the same time his stomach swoops in a dangerous way. He sniffs it even more enthusiastically, still.

Mint, just like Dan’s gum, and therefore his kissable mouth. Not that he should know he knows. 

Caught up in the goodnatured fun of creating a hearty meal while humming a tune and feeling the delicious warmth of the late morning graze his skin, Phil barely registers the sound of the shrill doorbell. And once he does he’s startled, majorly. 

Pots and pans and stray ingredients fly up the walls and through the kitchen, his lanky, clumsy limbs grasping for something to grip onto.

“I’m on my way! I’m on my way!” Phil shouts, voice cracking and hands fumbling. He realises he never quite knows what to do with his hands, if they aren’t already occupied, whenever Dan catches him off guard. Or really any other time. 

_ By Branwen!  _ he thinks,  _ This feeling is merciless! May she guide me through yet another storm.. _

He reaches the door on the fourth extended ring, his apron lathered in condiments. Flour splattered in his hair, and hands sticky, he pulls on the handle so hard that Dan almost falls flat on his face. 

Phil picks him up from the floor while apologizing profusely, and being more nervous than he was ten seconds ago, he doesn’t know what to do or what to say or where to look.

Brushing off his apology as well as whatever flour has made its way onto his black clothes, laughter fades into giggles as Dan takes the sight in.

Even when squirming underneath it, Phil is still sure he imagines the way his eyes rake his body. It feels exposing, intimate, and certainly not something he’d do to just a friend like him. He’s just not pretty nor interesting enough to warrant a reaction like it from someone like Dan. And as Dan has said himself, he’s incapable of loving or whatever sorta excuse he gave last time he’d tried to offer his affections properly. 

That was years ago. He has remembered it well, and it weighs his lovesick heart down.

“What sort of monstrosities have you engaged in!?”

“May I ask wherever you snuck off to in the middle of the night.” Phil retorts, earning himself a matching pout to his own. The genuine guilt simmering in his stark brown eyes takes him aback, and for a second or two the warm giddiness is replaced by a hard lump, an equally painstaking guilt building up.

Running a hand through his frizzy dark hair, Dan shifts from one foot to the other; Phil’s not sure if the lip pinned between his shiny teeth is more worrying than it is atrociously attractive. He’s especially unsure what he’d ever do with the information his brain supplies him with in the most tactless of moments, like right now!

⁂

The colourful living room, littered with knick knacks, greets Dan with an offer of a comforting resting place and a wonderful view of the hills outside. And a view of Phil’s ass as well… not that he’d ever admit to that.

Homely and sweet, the smell of Phil’s excellent, delicious cooking and baked goods drifts into the room from the kitchen where he saunters along the counter with his back turned to the sofa; as he said, a wonderful view. Excruciating, too, since he drifts into a spiral of thoughts which it may be dangerous to in the presence of Phil. 

At least he has enough heart to respond the third time Phil asks him if he wants pancakes or fruit more, despite wanting to curl up into a blushing ball of shame.

The food is brought out within minutes, forcing Dan to stifle his hunger and concentrate on anything but how close Phil is to him after he’d sat, having draped his apron across the sofa. Phil pokes his dimples and laughs at the way his cheeks lit up, and he can’t help himself as he laughs along. It’s infectious. 

Phil’s laughter really is the warmth of the sunshine on summers day, rays of sun rolling over the endless hills, setting the bogs and water on fire, and flowers glowing pink as they reflect the sky. It makes his stomach warm, like a sauntering fire or a chug of hot chocolate, and so does his presence next to him as well.

He is determined not to read into it, however. If Phil doesn’t reject him, he’ll still be hurt once he realizes Dan isn’t adequate.

At that they dig into the breakfast together. Like the fools they are, they laugh and joke and even roll about while eating, and the touches and casual signs of affection makes Dan’s heart go haywire. 

The sunlight is now caressing the top of the trees around the cottage, a bright warmth flooding into the room and washing over their skin with a tingly sense of comfort and familiarity, accentuating every strand in Phil’s bronze quiff, and each rosey blemish of his own glowing redder and brighter. 

Dan’s stomach does its familiar swoop as Phil lands on top of him, shrill laughter escaping his lips and the warmth of his lanky body pressing onto him. 

Even though it’s a dangerous game, he still reaches up with his teeth out, catching Phil’s earlobe and pulling. Not with much force, but enough to cause a reaction.

Phil doesn’t move even if his pointy ears twitch and his eyes widen, a deep blush rising up his jaw from his neck.  _ Creiddylad, oh, oh why do I have to live with the most adorable and attractive person to ever exist! _

Dan loves doing this though he knows it won’t lead anywhere desirable. No kisses stolen underneath the mystical stars, Arianrhod watching them from above. No holding hands in that heartwarming way after they’ve brushed against each other a painful number of times. And no breaths tickling his skin, telling him in that deep, slick voice at any hour how much he loves him. He won’t ever be allowed to do so back.

He has bad luck in love, and losing their friendship even for a shot, wherever it leads, is too dangerous to him.

Whining his name, Phil finally pushes up and away from Dan, leaving him to let out the sigh he’s been holding in. But despite an expression of mock-despair flashing across his face he doesn’t push Dan’s hands away from his chest.

“What?” he laughs, knowing full well what Phil’s getting at. Even without the pure colour of his cheekbones and how short of breath he his, he’d know, because he feels the same. He’s just adamant of not letting it get as far as he might want in fear of breaking them, and Phil isn’t making it clear if he hates or loves what Dan does to him  _ does to him _ . So, he tries not to assume and push that ambiguous line too far.

Phil _ fakes _ a pout, the lines around his eyes still crinkled, a sign of content and happiness he doesn’t need to decipher. “Not fair!” he grumbles, but he snatches a muffin from the tray rather enthusiastically anyways, his ears still as red. 

Dan doesn’t say anything back, but he can feel his eyebrows rising, matching the smile that has melted into a satisfying smirk upon his tepid face.

After taking a large bite out of the glazed frosting, purposefully exadurating each twitch of his face and every lick on his lips, he chucks it at Dan who barely catches it, having to drop his hands from Phil’s shoulder before doing so.

“Why do you always do that and never-” Phil begins, stifling his words as quickly as he possibly could. His face is turned away, making everything but the frustration in his voice unreadable. Something he’s good at, always has been, and which makes any argument they’ve ever had go up in flames. This time it’s worse, however.

“Do what?” Dan asks. 

Radio silence.

He feels himself getting equally as frustrated, this time, the bright cover creasing and crumbling up in his tightening fists. 

“Do what?” he repeats, trying to keep his voice level and failing miserably. Despite the twitching of Phil’s limbs he continues. “You don’t go through with anything either, and you certainly never tell me to stop. If there’s something I’m missing here maybe you should just tell me!”

“You’re the one who keeps on saying you’re bad at love, and that you don’t want it and whatever!” Phil quips, head whipping around to glare him down with a look he has not ever seen on his friends face. His elven features twist in a grim, pained expression, and crystals well up in the corners of his shining blue eyes. Immediately, Dan wants to take each word back, and a lump starts to build in his stomach, weighing him down. “So sorry that _ poor little you _ are mad now that I’ve decided to not hand out what you’ve rejected, clearly and concisely, in advance.”

Blood rushes from his head, his vision cracking and blurring like a window on a rainy day. Dan feels himself going white as a sheet at his words. “Because it’s true, Phil.” he hears a distant voice say, sounding broken, shattered. “I’m inadequate at loving, and unsuited to receive it, and I certainly don’t deserve it.”

He realises too late that he said those words himself, despite the truth echoing within them, and with another sigh he collapses back on the sofa as Phil rushes into the kitchen. It should be a relief. Still, it seems the weight in his stomach grows for every second that he’s gone, and the only thing that grants him peace in the moment is the heaviness of his eyelids.

⁂

Phil’s not certain of how or why he became enamoured with a nymph who doesn’t even dare to believe he’s capable of being loved, and who at the same time believes himself incapable to love them back even if somebody did. _Inadequate, he’d said. Unsuited._ _Don’t deserve it._

_ Branwen, oh Branwen! _ It makes him sick to his stomach where he stands, leaned over the wooden countertop Dan designed and made, that his brilliant best friend and person of affection would think of himself like that. Even more so when a person so hopelessly in love with him faced him, truth bared and all.

Situations like these are common with them, Phil realises. And yet they have not to this day spiraled this far; maybe only ever led to a dip in the bog all alone to clear his head; or a few hours of silence and downtime where they don’t interact at all. 

Dan has never broken like this, and he himself has never snapped. He doesn’t know why he did, anyways.

Regret simmers underneath the surface of his being, bubbling up his skin and cramping his stomach. 

Outside the small windows that vent to his herbal garden, the light simmers in a similar way, shining from the sun stood high in the blue sky with a silvery glow. It grazes the ground and the colourful plants that are product of his hard work, like this life they’ve built for themselves. 

A single tear rolls down his cheek, not much unlike the sap from one of his exotic saplings, when he hears the front door slam. It rattles the walls, ones in his mind and physically, too. Not really what he expected to get out of today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! comments & kudos appreciated! Update schedule will be each day for the next two weeks :P
> 
> Vocab:  
> Forest nymph - skogsrå  
> Elf - älva (Skandinavian folklore)  
> Branwen - goddess of love and beauty  
> Creiddylad - goddess of flowers and love  
> Arianrhod - goddess of the moon and stars


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in a single day to make up for posting this on a Sunday!!  
> -  
> tw food

The ground is moist and sags underneath Dan’s bare feet.

Deflating, like the wrinkly, ugly thoughts roaming his mind do in its presence, the whole bog sighs. Its body shifts and turns as it sinks into the earth, and much like the rest of the marshlands in this part of the world, it glows faintly even in the light of day. An eternal  _ feeling _ runs through its veins, supplying it with energy to do whatever it likes. 

He wishes he could be as free, and as carefree, as this part of nature. It barely even adheres to the weather, unlike the forest and highland’s fields that follow the rhythmic beat of seasons and sun and supply. 

And here Dan is, gently traversing the marsh, his brain still adhered to the memory of what Phil told him. Controlling his limbs, pulling his eyes through the back of his head, making him feel unexplainable emotions. He bubbles like a cauldron, and he’s sure there’s not much time left before the metal cracks from the heat and bursts, whatever concoction is inside him spilling out.

The sun above is subdued by swirly clouds, the blues of the sky shrouded in the silver mist that rises from the ground. He takes a few more steps into the unknown, slowing his pace as he does.

He’s uncertain of what to think of it all. Phil snapped, if snapped even is the correct word. 

Was he terribly, horribly, angrily heartbroken? he’ll have to ask for a second opinion on that one. He can’t believe that will ever end well.

Dan trudges on, the splats from beneath his soles echoing through the silence. Between mossy rocks and juniper bushes he walks, the bog shifting once more and time stretching on, the shrouded light not alerting his senses to how much of it has passed.

On an ordinary day even someone as powerful as this forest nymph may have been urged to stay away from this part of the highlands, where the sun is never seen by anyone but birds sky-high, and there could be a cliffedge hiding behind each wall of mist. And yet today he feels a pull to the stretch of soggy flat land. Something unbeknownst to him before has stirred within, a great creature of the forest after its dormancy, and it resonates comfort with this mystical place. 

A cry breaks through the emptiness, startling him like the raven did in the forest so many hours before.

Heavy, the flapping of wide wings echo through the half-darkness, a small, sweet breeze tumbling and turning the mist in his sight. 

Thinking back to whatever could’ve gone wrong with what he had said and why he even felt the need to leave, Dan doesn’t pay mind to the movements that flash by in the edge of his vision. 

Why had he been so angry at Phil? 

Phil’s correct, because Dan is the one who always denies any chemistry as well as friction. He’s always the one that pulls away at the last second before anything can happen that he deems unsuitable, and the one who avoids his best friend for days in fear afterwards.

Fear of what, really? Dan thinks, his eyebrows creasing. What am I really afraid of here? If it’s the rejection, that I’ve seen and found so many times before, then I really just have to get my shit together, right…? 

His vision swirls and his lips sigh. There’s a certain fight to be made here, clearly, and he’s not sure how much energy he’ll be able to waste on keeping himself in check while fighting it.

If Phil wants the same thing as him, maybe he should just let his fasade go. Maybe those fears will dilute in the face of anything but adversary. 

Being loved could be the cure for feeling like you can’t- 

The deafening sound of trampling hooves pulls him back to reality, after he’s been transfixed on his spot for some time. Across the sky a darkness swirls; a coldness whistles through the air.

He’s on the run into the trees long before the first droplets smatter on his head. 

⁂

With a defeated sigh, Phil slots another plate back into its spot in the cupboard. They’re organized by colour and size, as close as you could get, at the very least. He’s never liked mess, but disorder is different. Controlled disorder, that is. Otherwise it’s really just a mess.

Their cupboards are part of that controlled disorder, and a way for them to feel like they have any control over their lives, despite their differences.

He’s never seen anything wrong with it before, but now he’s realized it may not all be like it seems. Almost like the control they’re lacking in other aspects of this life is something they apply to mundane components instead. Like the plates.

Hand hovering over Dan’s favourite mug, a black one with white flowing lines representing plants, Phil debates preparing a drink for him despite him having been gone for hours at this point. Too late, however, as the coffee machine beeps at the same time as his hands graze the simplistic handle. With another deep sigh he turns back to the counter, the dishcloth snapping through the air like a whip.

Phil feels gloomy, if not outright sad. The already begrudging task of washing and drying the dishes has somehow become even more begrudging. And despite his best efforts he’s unable to shake the feeling of uneasiness that creeps up on him, every ten minutes or so judging by the colourful clock on the wall.

Judging by that same clock, Dan is not in an ordinary part of the highlands. He’s found it useful over the years, he has, being able to know that Dan’s safe and somewhere he can be grounded, and now he can’t. It’s terrifying to Phil, that the love of his life would feel too unsafe knowing his position is marked; too unsafe and uncomfortable with Phil himself; that he’d go as far as seeking new territory. That’s another step in the direction of moving out and away, Phil knows, and that’s horrifying to him. 

Absolutely his worst nightmare, and elves don’t have those in the same way as humans do.

Then there’s his little ordeal with crystal tears.. that he has been over for quite some time now; still, he cannot shake the uneasiness.

The late afternoon sun sparkles on the windowsill where it dances, the fields outside cruising with the wind. After pouring himself a cup of -according to Dan and Dan only- bland instant coffee, Phil leans against the glass and chugs.

His throat burns as the bitter, almost earthy liquid sloshes down. It smells herby, stinging and fruity, and the little left in the cup glares up at him, shaming his decisions and trains of thoughts.

Oh well, he thinks, a pout visible on his face. You only live once.

He pours himself another cup just in time to be reminded of Dan again.  _ There goes another chug. _

⁂

Phil wakes to rain rolling off the roof of their quaint cottage. Dark clouds clad the sky outside, and a worry simmers in his chest, refusing to rest as he sits bolt up in his bed. 

Beads of sweat cover him as he remembers what had entered his mystical mind forest. A haunted, hollow ghost of a person: a forest nymph rottened and withered. He’d been scared, terribly scared, by the shell of Dan he’d encountered in the typically calm place. Phil also realizes he’s been seeing more  _ bad _ things lately, in his dreams. He wishes deeply it doesn’t mean any of the things he thinks it could.

The wind screams outside. Again and again. 

The grey shadows in the room press in on Phil’s consciousness, his heart racing as he tries to keep them out. Thunder explodes, just after a flash of lightning sets the dark horizon on fire. Unexplainably so, the blinds have separated, letting the view freely into the room, and the window is tilted open. 

An uneasy itch crawls from the tip of his toes, up to his tight chest, clamping on as it contracts and retracts with newfound difficulty.

His inability to breathe within his own home settles it for Phil. He can’t sleep and he won’t rest, and whether he’ll be able to once he gets another coffee or talks to Dan is up to debate. All he knows is he can’t get that horrid image out of his head.

After closing the window, preventing another strong breeze from chilling the temperature of the room, he leaves it- Light on his feet, as always.

Blue shades tint the shadows in the dark kitchen when he reaches it. The tiles are cold underneath his bare soles. Despite him having double layers of pajamas and a duvet wrapped around him that cold still seems to be getting to him.

Following his usual routine, just quieter, Phil prepares his drink and wipes down the counter periodically. He bustles on while the coffee machine rattles, and somehow the space around him becomes cleaner than it did after he properly went over it after dinner.

He spreads butter on a piece of toast, steals some of Dan’s cereal, and waters his cacti in the living room before the clock goes off and loud beeps fill the room. With a wince he hopes it hasn’t woken Dan up -he’s in the vicinity if the clock is anything to go by- and then he pours himself just enough for a few more minutes of only standing around.

“Hey-”

Phil swears, the words spilling out of his mouth quicker than he can quipp it shut, as the scalding coffee splatters across his hands and drips onto his feet. Or maybe it’s the shock of meeting another sentient shadow in the kitchen at 3 am.

Or maybe he’s just surprised at seeing Dan’s gorgeous frizzy bedhead, his bare upper body, and hearing his grumbly yet welcoming, homely voice for the first time in hours.

After collecting himself, eyes wide and a warm heat spreading up his neck that he hopes isn’t too visible in the dim room, Phil finds the words he supposes will be the best way to calm the tense atmosphere. “H-ey Dan.” 

_ Very original, Phil. Way to make yourself look chill, you massive dunce. _

With a warm smile -finally with his dimple poking out again- Dan uses his big hands to steady his shaking arms, and then he takes the mug from him, placing it on the counter with great care. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you so.” 

“It- it’s nothing, really!” he stutters, soft chuckling rolling across Dan’s plump, chapped lips in response as his curls bounce and- 

When did he become so subconsciously yet consciously aware of how pretty he is? Phil’s been in love with the guardian of this forest for years, yes, but his mind has never been so consumed with his every movement..

“coffee at 3am huh? You’ve really developed bad habits over the twelve hours I’ve been gone, haven’t you, elven bean...” 

Phil’s breath hitches, Dan’s nose barely touching his own, the slight height advantage on his end only coming from his self-imposed intimidating presence. Then the moment is broken when he leans back again, the dishcloth flying through the air. “Suppose I shouldn’t leave like that for long again.. Let me get that for you.”

Ice creeps through his bones while Dan wipes away whatever spillage has gotten on the floor and onto them.

He stands again, a wistful smile on his face. “Well, I suppose I’ll leave you to it then.” he remarks, gesturing at the mug again, and then he flees the room more abruptly than yesterday. His excavated back, dark and scuffed around the edges, is the last thing in his sights. 

Phil takes a breath once he’s gone, and then a surge of disappointment and wishful thinking floods his head.  _ Maybe if he’d just stayed.. _

⁂

Dan can’t believe himself. He’s pressed up against his bedroom door, only down the hall from where Phil is probably drinking his coffee right now, and he’s fighting every limb in his body, every urge coming from within him, that is trying to drag him back out there again. His heart is racing and his naked skin feels slippery yet chafed. 

_ I’ve done enough _ , he thinks as he sinks to the floor. 

He knows he hasn’t repaired all the faults, all the cracks. But it’s a start, and from him that’s enough for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw nightmare, food, mild nudity

A couple of days go by until Phil has another nightmare.

_ Tears break on the mossy forest floor, tumbling through the green in a whirlwind of shame and animalistic despair. Sobs tear through the verdure, reverberating across hill and through nick. Jade green hues clothe pine trees from the ground up.  _

_ Solemn, the landscape sighs with each shaky breath that escapes across its lips. A river seizes its path by rolling aquamarine blood, jumping over silver stones. _

_ The crying sky appears, becoming pernicious. Loathsome words fall upon the world we cower within... _

Screaming.  _ The walls _ are screaming.

Phil jolts alive, as if a bucket of ice has been dropped on his head in the darkness of night. And yet he feels like the tepid, misty sweat rolling off his brow and down his neck could suffocate him with warmth. The shock dissipates almost immediately, to be replaced by terror and fear.

_ Agrona! Agrona!  _ bounces off each wall, tearing through the thick air clambering to the house. It fades with each syllable, but still manages to keep its message loud and clear. 

In a cold sweat Phil sneaks out of his room, slouched to keep his brain closed and his stature protected. His hands wringe and run along the walls, relief flooding to the surface of his skin when they find a grasp around the rough metal of a doorknob. Fortunately before he’s able to properly panic.

It’s with relief he opens the unlocked door and steps into the shade of the moon room.

Small shining stars dot the floor, reflecting on the ceiling in an almost freckled way. Deep blue trees rise in an infinite way, even where the walls end physically. In the centre of the floor, crowned by a crescent mirror, stands a king-sized bed with dark, foresty covers.

Curled beneath the folds of fabric, a Dan-shaped lump sleeps in silence. The views and colours around the room reflect on his skin, and the only thing contrasting the shades is the darkness of his back. His chest rises and lifts the covers, steady for even the seconds it takes for Phil to reach the headboard. The man-made, velvety sky underneath his soles exhales but doesn’t make a sound. 

Waiting before stirring his heavy sleep, he watches Dan’s heavy eyelids shift as his eyes turn inside his head, his curls rising off his forehead when his breath escapes, and the slight twitch of the fingers that grasp the edge of the blanket. Then, as he seems to not be disturbed by his presence, he sinks into the mattress himself.

Like every time they’ve done this over the years, it instills him with comfort, and Dan automatically slots himself into his side. His skin tingles and his hairs rise, visibly, when Phil’s hand touches the edges of the cavity in his back.

Sleepily, and with eyes still shut, Dan’s smile turns up. “Can’t sleep, huh?”

Phil shakes his own head, lips quirking, and then rests it atop his hairdo.

Lips warm on his skin, already half asleep, Dan whispers into his collarbone, and then moves down. On days like these Phil wishes he wore shirts to bed, and at the same time that more would come off.

“Knew you ‘ould…” tickles his skin, a breeze moving through the trees on his chest. “I knew..” 

Then they’re both fast asleep again, may it be with untroubled or troubled dreams.

⁂

Dan wakes alone. His head empty and his covers undone, he has no idea what went down hours before, despite what his sleep-deprived mouth had decided to articulate. 

He can feel coarseness still on his lips, but it’s not an adequate clue for anything.

Sweet and teasing his hunger, the smell of lavender tea travels through the cottage. He pulls himself out of bed, carefully choosing an outfit -equally as dark as the day before- and then saunters out into the hallway. Surprisingly enough, Phil’s door is closed, which is only unusual because he always leaves it open after use in the mornings, like with the cupboards. He decides not to dwell on it. Again.

A smile stretches his face once Phil’s back comes into view. He’s wearing a bright sunny apron, his hair sweaty and tangled, and in the morning sun his translucent skin shines just as brightly. 

A gentle hum escapes across Phil’s lips when Dan slots into his side, eyeing the ingredients and assembled dishes with a wary eye. “Mornin’ early bird!” he teases, a chuckle on his lips. “Don’t look so glum, it’s just bacon and tomato soup.”

He fakes a pout, knowing full well Phil knows. “I don’t like to-ma-to!” he whines, prodding Phil in the side when his laughter only rings louder and louder. “Not. fair.”

Phil’s arms cradle around him and his crossed arms, bringing him out of his stubbornness and crumbling the fake anger. His hair smells of floral soap, despite the sweat that tangles it up, and his closeness throws him off guard. Without his natural defences up, so early in the morning and even worse with a hazy memory, his stomach flips. Twice.

Being handed a cup of tea pulls him out of his head, and Dan desperately hopes his dazed look wasn’t too obvious.

Unlike Phil’s bland, cheap instant coffee, his homemade lavender tea is heavens for Dan. While he prefers a brew over a cuppa any day of the week except maybe saturdays -afternoon tea while zazzed on sugar is always the best- the flavour and texture of this specific blend of tea is exceptional, and oh so very  _ Phil _ .

In comfortable silence they dine, Phil hoovering up everything from soup and eggs to pieces of chocolate and bacon, while Dan mostly shuffles his feet and stifles his hunger with time rather than speed. 

At one point Phil nearly knocks over the whole pot, and Dan has to catch it for him. As usual, tending to the clumsy lord of the house.

Glassy pools of water and tall trees calling out for him, he knows he can’t stand around much longer. He’s a forest nymph, after all, and the guardian of the Caledonian forest. He has got duties outside their comfortable, shared existence, unlike Phil who can do almost anything he wants. On most days that meant tending to their house and garden, and otherwise visiting his parents in the forest.

Rarely he’ll go out into the highlands and help Dan out. He always wants him to, though, so before he turns and leaves the room the urge to ask returns. He decides, for once, to act.

The words come hard to him, but finally they slip out. “If you’d like, you could come out into the forest. Today. With me. But only if you’d like, of course. Think about it. Maybe.”

Then he runs out the door to prepare, and from his turbulent feelings, and before Phil is able to utter a single word.

There’s a heavy knock on his door not ten minutes later. The house has been silent for that brief period of time, save the occasional pitter-patter of feet and the clanks of pots and pans. And of course Dan’s own mumblings and rattle.

He throws the mess of clothes on his floor together, haphazardly, and then rushes to the door.

Phil is stood on the other side, bearing a wide grin that widens when he sees Dan. He takes a visible step back, unsteady on his feet, and Dan wonders if it is because of the blemish that’s spreading warmly on his face.

“I’d very much like to pick up on your offer from before.” Phil informs him. “If you haven’t changed your mind, that is, sleepyhead.”

_ Okay, now my face is certainly, embarrassingly red _ , Dan thinks, barely able to conceal the splutter that rolls off his chapped lips. 

“Of course you can still come with, you spork. Just make sure you’re ready to go in ten or something.” he grumbles despite the involuntary smirk that appears on his face, scratching his neck.

“Okey-dokey!” Phil sing-songs, patting his arm and then skipping away without another look. Dan’s sure he himself stands dazed for a moment longer, unable to handle the repercussions of the physical touch. Time just slips away, and not much later he’s walking out the door with him by his side.

Hopefully he’ll be able to stay focused on what he went out to do.

Hopefully. 

⁂

Nighttime has fallen upon the sleepy forest.

The pearlescent tears of the sky run through darkened grooves, cutting them open in a bristle, throat-cutting way. Dan’s warm hand is gentle and loose in his grip, welcoming the touch but not pushing it further. Despite how that worries him, how it’s almost like their borders have both shifted and stayed the same, Phil feels comfort in his closeness. It’s still a step forward despite the setback, that he himself doesn’t read into it, and it has quickly become a sign of comfort and pride, the further they’ve walked.

A typhoon of soft silver smoke rolls across their lips and through the air. Like them, the forest breathes even at night. Bitter on his tongue, he tries to inhale in short succession to avoid the taste.

Dark moss crunches beneath their steps. Passing through the forest on nimble feet with arms intimately clasped together, the moist air deconsing upon their skin, it’s as if the forest rouses and his own heat flares with lust and desire.

He’ll have to control that, he knows, if he wants Dan’s mind to stay focused. To not crumble under the pressure of being loved and loving, no matter how much Phil wants to love him freely and openly. 

They fall to a stop in a meadow without roof, many miles from home. They’ve been out for longer than Dan would have been on a normal night, and Phil knows that it’s partially because Dan has a lot to do. But he also hopes that it’s because there’s no Phil to come home to.

Phil is right here, and he’ll gladly follow him through everything.

The stars reflect in Dan’s chocolate eyes, dancing like mischievous sparkles accompanying a smirk, or will-o’-the-wisps clothing the mossy floor. High above a night-bird sings, relieving its burdens to the empty void that encompasses them all.

He looks  _ beautiful _ , he thinks. His curls fall over his face, lichen clinging to the strands, and his hands are grimy with earth after all the work he’s been doing, but that’s just even more admirable. He works hard, and that’s just the way he is.

A shuddering breath falls from Phil’s mouth before he’s able to stop it. Dan turns, at the inkling of a sound, and meets his plate-wide eyes with a look of knowing glee. He doesn’t comment, however, and shortly spins back around to watch the concave move above.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he asks, a hint of wonder in his tone. With his mouth dried and tightening, Phil finds himself unable to speak, but he does agree. He always does, even if he sometimes can’t find the right words to put to his thoughts.

Dan leads him from the meadow and down a small slope, following a winding path from its north side and further into the forest. He has told him their final client -as he calls them all- is waiting down by a hidden creek, tucked away underneath the forest floor and just beyond the end of this path. Beneath the feet or hooves of whoever stands in the meadow in that moment.  __

Losing Dan, and the sight of him, for even just a few seconds at a time doesn’t sit right with Phil. 

Even less so when he comes upon on the creek and finds that Dan has suddenly stripped down to only his barest piece of clothing, and is standing waist deep in the water. The waves and ripples may flood the hole in his back, still the darkness within it means he’s visible even under water. But that doesn’t make the whole exposed-neck, nipples-out, lean-thigh situation any more comfortable. 

He wants to tear his eyes away so desperately, and give Dan the space he might need to keep his ritual flow going, but his sockets will all but let them pivot.

Dan’s gorgeous, yes, but he shouldn’t have to be ogled by his best friend -or whatever the hell else he is to him- just because he has decided to show some skin.

At the very least that was his mindset up until Dan calls: “Get your clothes off and get in if you’d like to actually witness the magic, you dingus!”

Then, all rational thought ceases to exist, and Dan’s longing gaze grazing his body does nothing to deter it.

⁂

Phil’s fearless, Dan thinks. Extravagant, bold, fearless, and the most beautiful being to have ever lived.

The one being Dan doesn’t deserve.

He tries to shake the feeling off himself; he’s only taking his shirt off. And exposing his tangly chest hair. And then his knee-high shorts are lost, thrown somewhere into the woods. 

Dan can’t breathe, but he’s sure that’s a good thing for now. If he had an ounce of air in his lungs, he’s certain he’d shout things he’d immediately regret. And they might’ve made Phil run the other way. Or he’d have snapped at him for leading him on. Again.

Beckoning Phil into the water is an easy task, he finds. He practically throws himself head first to get to him as quickly as possible, and then he follows him close behind as they walk on, trudging across the creek and into a knook shielded by large stones.

Through instinct, Dan knows the little flower he has to help grow stands just two feet in front of them. But today, and today specifically, the stream is stronger than it usually is during the autumn season.

He asks Phil for a hand, and generous as ever, he lends it. Trying not to think of the length or the smoothness of his fingers, he takes a step out into the ripples, his lifeline still cowering beneath the rocky tower.

Bearing bristle leaves and a single, late-blooming flower situated atop the stem, the 

_ grian fon uisge  _ stands about as proudly as it can.

Without yet putting his head under water, Dan leans up close to the plant and gets down on his knees, the sand at the bottom scuffing his skin. Once he’s anchored he lets go of Phil’s hand, its absence a spear through his gut and a stinging lump in his throat. Pushing the feeling down he gets to work.

Strings of magical energy erupt from each crevice in his palms. They turn bright yellow to contrast the clear, blue water around it, and it cleaves the stream better than any knife could.

Under his breath Dan mumbles the names of all the gods he may need to call for help.

Phil’s presence reappears behind him, and he doesn’t mind. 

He knows it may very well be the pretty ways the strands tangle around the grian fon uisge that entices him, but his brain helpfully supplies him with reasons Phil might actually be interested in his work beyond the superficial and divine elements. 

He tries not to get his hopes up.

Once his mind stops racing, and his heart beating, and the strings retract back into his skin, he sinks back and catches his breath.

Phil’s hand clutches his cheek, gentle in every movement, and he turns his jaw to face him. He looks just as out of breath as Dan feels; just a bit more amazed than overworked.

“That-” he stammers, pulling Dan up before he seems to find his voice again. “That was absolutely breathtaking. I can’t believe you don’t take me out into the forest for work more often!”

The smile on his face can probably melt the winter months away, or light a match. “I’ll say I should, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vocab:  
> grian fon uisge - underwater sun


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double upload for the sake of time constraints :p  
> -  
> tw vomiting (after the second ⁂)

Harvest time is just around the corner, and Phil is arranging his equipment. He hasn’t had much time to do so recently, although that has been entirely by choice. He has been spending all of his freetime out with Dan, watching him work.

The tension from their argument has almost dissolved with time, as it should, but the unanswered questions still hang in the air. They pester him every night, no matter where or if he sleeps.

It hurts, he really can’t lie.

The working and the watching really does distract him though. That’s a blatant truth, and so he shines some more of his blades. 

Golden waves ripple through the harvest, made possible only by his nimble hands and potion skills. The fields are lushious, gorgeously so, and the wind’s gentle touch grazes them like it’s the only truth it wants to tell.

He wishes Dan would talk to him. He has barely seen him all day, except for when they passed each other in the kitchen, Phil’s smile fading when he barely got a muffled  _ hi _ . He’d strolled back to his room, dark clothes sweaty and ruffled, hair a mess, and a million and one words on his tongue. Mumbled and grumbled, and it made Phil even more confused. He hadn’t been acting like himself.

He thinks back to their early days. The early days when they would laugh into each other’s hair, whispering late at night into the other’s exhaled air, and when the tingles crawling across his skin would not only be accepted by the both of them but they’d appear often.

They had talked so easily, the touches came with natural instinct, and they’d be like conjoined at the hip. Dan even came over to his parent’s sometimes, and they’d tease their youngest son -aka him- for days afterwards.

Because they knew. At some points Dan had been there at the time, and he’d joke along. And now it seems like Dan doesn’t want to know.

Or maybe he stopped knowing after he got rejected for the third time. By people who were never Phil.

After hours of him thinking, the door creaks open, light filtering into the room. Phil freezes, one hand releasing its grip on the egg of his smallest scythe. The other hand steadies his shaking legs, and then he places all of his things on the ground. Carefully.

“Phil?” He sounds unsure, almost timid and sad. It makes his gut churn, and he doesn’t like that either.

“Dan wha-”

“We need to talk. Or rather, I need to tell you something.” 

At that Phil turns, his eyes wide and surely crazy-looking. Dan’s gaze is fixated on his feet, his cheeks pink and his eyes just as disheveled. His hands only move from his pockets to scoop up a stray curl that’s fallen onto his forehead, with the angle and all.

“I’ve thought a lot, and finally found what I need to tell you.” Dan begins, voice steadying. He feels a forceful hand squeeze around his heart. “After our argument I couldn’t stop questions from tumbling around in my head. I realise, now, that I did treat you unfairly, and that I should communicate better. So, Phil-”

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and there could be a million reasons why.

“-I came to apologize for leading you on and not following through. I think it’s be better if we went back to before, just without all of that teasing, emotional bullshit coming from my end.” He waves his hand, as if to make the unspoken things disappear. “If you’d like to still be my friend after how I’ve behaved, that is.”

Somewhere the wind sighs, rattling the windows of the cottage. 

Phil feels the hand release his heart, moving up to his throat and stopping him from exhaling the breath he’s been holding. It feels like a pang to his chest.

“Of course I’ll still be your friend, Dan.” he says, desperate to break the silence but putting on a faux-smile all the same. “That’s what friends are able to do. Forgive and forget, and stay true.”

Dan smiles back, though genuinely it seems, relief flooding his features, the tension in his limbs dissipating. Phil can’t feel the same way, and instead a darkness presses itself into his numbing head.

“Well, I’ll make dinner for a change, then!” Dan says brightly, and skips out, leaving him alone with his troubled thoughts.

This wasn’t the outcome he wanted, or expected. Not at all.

⁂

Dan doesn’t make dinner for the both of them that night. Or the next. 

Or at least, if he did, Phil didn’t notice.

Three knocks have been distributed to his door throughout the day, and each time he has stayed silent, unless a question has been asked that he felt was important enough to answer at that time.

The excuse has always been that he’s sick. And he’s not really. And somehow Dan either doesn’t care enough to realize, or he does, and just doesn’t care. Bile rises in Phil’s stomach at that second thought. He might actually become sick, at this rate.

The whole of his room is encased in shadows, blue green red and hot white alike. His pillow smells of bubblegum and cherry; thankfully nothing like Dan. It makes it easier to press his face into it, forcing his shut eyelids to cooperate, and pushing any floating visulas involving tan, beautiful Dan with his locks and his half-smile smirk and his clearly stated  _ go back to being friends  _ out of his blurring sight.

Stars dance in his sockets as he presses his head further into the fabric, suffocating his tears, and stifling the sobbing sounds that threaten to wake the world to his sorrow.

A knife twists within his chest. His mind echoes with taunting words and the mattress has claws, tearing at his skin. 

Phil desperately prays for the darkness to swallow him whole. 

Because that’s exactly what he’s trying to adjust to. Broken heart, crushed dreams, fizzing hope, and  _ going back to being friends _ . It might not be going very well, but he’s trying. And as long as the horrible pain goes away he’ll be fine.

Sooner or later.

⁂

The vomit burns in his throat as it goes up and then sloshes down, like a bitter beer his body would reject. He regurgitates for the fifteenth time, and finally relief washes upon him.

He has been sat crouched in the bathroom for the last to hours, which he’d snuck into once Dan had gone out for the day. His face is pale, just visible in their massive mirror, and his hands shake like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Breath slowing and heart steadying, he leans his head against the porcelain side. Sweat pours down the side of his face and down his palms, releasing his stress.

If he thought the pain of hiding how he felt was the worst it could ever get before, then now it’s like being a walking dead. 

Dan, if he ever wanted him, outright rejects the idea of them being together. Not for a reason, like being bad at loving, but because he thinks all that happened before on his end was bullshit. That it was all a half-hearted attempt at forcing out emotional bullshit.

Phil refuses to believe that Dan actually and only lead him on. He knows very well it can’t be true, and yet, as he collapses onto the tiled bathroom floor, the only thing he knows is ache. The darkness around him embraces him, and as his skin breaks out into a devilish cold sweat, it takes him-

For the first time in three days, he rests.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw food

The sun rises as a painful reminder of time passing. It lights up the world, setting the still unharvested fields on fire, running down the side of the hills in the highlands like a massive river of gold and molten stone, and dancing with the fireflies that linger from the night.

Dan saunters into the kitchen and rests his chin on the marvelous wooden counter that has seen many years of use. Mostly from Phil, and his crafty hands. He marvels in the rifts that have been created, and the scuffed corners.

Outside the window Phil’s little plant garden thrives, despite the looming threat of frost and winter. Cacti in small pots bask underneath the massive spotlight, the smaller flowers wake and stretch, and the larger vines sigh as they cling to the walls. 

He could stand here for days and watch all of Phil’s hard work prosper.

Hunger needs to be tended to, however, and so he turns his gaze around, getting to work with not very much occupying his mind. Except for Phil, Phil, Phil, and Phil-

When Dan takes the third sip of his coffeé, Phil enters the room and greets him with a sad smile. It’s sad, he notices, because not only does it not reach his eyes, but it’s watery and strained. Like he can’t, or doesn’t want to, smile.

Phil has always been beautiful, and despite his sad smile he still is. 

Dan can’t help but notice the curve of his quiff, the red that stands out among the strands, and the way they swoop around to form his ruffled bedhead. 

His eyes are beautifully blue, clear as the sky and deep as the rivers and creeks. Spots glow within, revealing all the wonders of the world.

Lips that are too pale to be normal, but still pink and glowing in the pale sun, are proud part of his face. His cupids bow curves above, his lower lip jutting out, and when closed the pout is wildly accentuated.

Freckles speckle his cheekbones, which rise high and could cut like glass. Down his neck and up his head they run, like rivers of tiny dark dots traversing a sunlit, fair forest.

When he comes up close, his floral shampoo staining the air wherever he moves, Dan tenses up and takes another sip to hide his expression. He’s  _ beautiful. _

An ache has settled in Dan’s chest, and he’s reminded of it again when Phil jumps away as soon as he’s gotten his cup from above his head. It appeared and grew while Phil was cooped up in his room, and later the bathroom, hiding from him.

If it does anything but cement his incapability as a friend, and his use of love and care… then he can’t notice that himself.

Today Phil’s up, and more chipper than he seemed to be before. Visibly not happy, but here all the same. He’s wearing a bright green shirt, and despite his mood he appreciates Dan’s gesture of making enough coffeé for the both of them. If his hum of gratitude is anything to go by.

Neither of them tries to make smalltalk, and so once the plate of biscuits is done, Phil leaves the kitchen on stumbling feet. Dan watches him go, ignoring the hole that eats away at his heart.

He has made his choice, and that’s the way it’ll have to go.

⁂

After so many weeks of not hunting, his skill in the sport comes back in waves and succession, rather than immediately, to Phil. His dominant hand is rusty. The bow is untrained to his touch, and the arrows do not always want to hit the targets he aims for, let alone come out of the quiver unscathed.

The silent forest is dark, and filled with musky smells. Swirls of mint ooze from the lichen that hang from the trees surrounding him, reminding him of Dan too much and too quickly, becoming a physical prison the further he ventures into the woods.

Too soon, he thinks, tears already escaping out their ducts. He sinks to the forest floor and collects himself, which takes almost too long, the wet lines still present beneath his eyes as he trudges on.

The evening draws on, with the end of the day never seeming to dawn upon the highlands. 

Beneath his scuffed ribs his heart beats. Though that may be an understatement.

His heart races faster than the tide comes in, faster than the earth spins, faster than any river may run even while during a heavy flood. The overstimulation combined with his anxiety overriding makes him sweat horridly much. His hands clamp and that certainly doesn’t help with the whole aiming thing.

The trees are like long, shadowy lines as dusk rolls around, finally. The sky is tinted a mix between rose and crystal pink, the horizon beneath the dancing leaves on fire with an orangey glow. Branches tangle in each other, the wind smattering across their bark and retangling them once they come loose. Somewhere above the roof of red and green, a bird cries out, followed by a flap of wings and practically explosion.

Phil’s breath grows more and more misty as the shadows all around grow longer and longer. His own follows him by his left side, the ferns and moss cowering in the darkness of it.

Branches and leaves break beneath his shoes, and each animal runs once they see his shadow. He’s not the guardian of the forest, unlike Dan, and so they’re all perfectly aware of his presence. With his bow following their movements, they’re even terribly afraid. That’s easy to see in their eyes, and honestly Phil feels the same right now.

To his left a crack opens up the earth, mud falling over the edge as it crumbles. The trees, age-old, lean over it and their branches too, residue falling down the drop and into another, different creek. His heart feels the same, split open by Dan’s words.

He’s unsure anything could mend it, now.

He passes through a bush full of thorns, wincing as they tear into his clothes and sting his skin, and then his breath goes away once he sees a place he did not expect to stumble upon. Not today, not any day, especially not on a day when he’s just had his heart broken.

The cliff.

The goddamn cliff.

After apologising to Branwen for his foul language, he approaches with his throat enclosed. He has memories from here, and from long ago, memories he’d rather forget now that he’s trying to not remember the subject of them.

If Phil really thinks hard enough, he’ll realize it was at this very cliff they were the closest to their breaking point. Ever. And in a good way, unlike nowadays.

The floodgates open before he’s able to stop them, because his senses and feelings are subdued by Dan’s minty gum that he shan’t know he remembers, and the rough earth underneath his soles edges him on. He sinks onto a nearby stone, before he realizes which stone it is.

_ Barnwen! Branwen! Ten years ago, when we just moved in _ , Phil thinks and pleads once his brain catches on to the pain flowing through him-  _ we sat on this very stone. We saw the water roll by down below, and we listened to birdsong and watched the breeze move the trees around our new, permanent home. He’d been the guardian of the forest for a long time, but we’d only just decided to spend this existence as close to it and each other as we possibly could.  _

His throat dries, palms clamming once again. There’s an itch growing and clawing beneath his eyelids, as he closes them to push out all other impressions. He tries to steady his breath, but his chest only contracts further.

_ And then- and then he cruelly tasted my lips, banishing me from such pleasure ever again! _

The tears begin to flow, like eternal waterfalls hailing from the sky, and this time they don’t stop.

⁂

With Phil having been gone all day, Dan stole some other crackers from the cupboards -which is far better than Phil’s sugar addiction, certainly- and is now sat cooped up in his room. His head rests on the soft, velvety floor and the ceiling glitters in his eyes.

Deep within something stirs. Dan tries pushing it down, but soon the feeling spills up through his esophagus. 

_ Did I do the right thing? _ he asks himself, his head empty of answers and general thoughts.

“Did I do the right thing?” he asks noone in particular.

The clock on the wall ticks on, the stars above him swirling ‘round. The darkness grows in the moon room, reflecting the dawn outside. Even when his stomach grumbles again he doesn’t move, the question having sucked all of the energy out of his body.

He feels empty. Stiff. Lonely. And right now there seems to be no way to stifle those feelings, no way to make him feel full again.

“Is this what I want?” Silence, the world decides, is the best answer.

“Is this what I truly feel?” 

There’s a churning in his stomach, and the wind crackles upon the roof. He sighs, not sure what he expected from the otherwise empty room. He shuts the outside out by closing his lids, and then turns, and lets sleep take him right there on his bedroom floor.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw nightmare

_ Bright blue, the lines crack open the fasade. They run through and split the grass and fields. Not much unlike light on a clear mornings day, except today it’s not so very clear. _

_ Muddled and swirling tears fall from the dark skies, which is lighting up as the lightning explodes in showers of sparks, every few seconds or so. The wind whines, tearing across the lands with such unimaginable terror that the world seems to cover in its grasp. _

_ Sobs, again, tear through the greenery. There’s an unmistakable familiarity to them, and yet he can’t find where the connection is sourced. Home feels so far away and yet so close. _

_ The hills rise above, rolling in the wind. The grass stands, like goosebumps in the cold night, making the whole scene move. Then he sees a figure, tall and yet slumped, appear upon the crook of the hill. They’re dressed in dark clothes, bare upper body glistening in the little sun that’s out. _

_ Phil’s breath catches in his throat. The blue lines light up and turn gold, splitting the wind and stilling the land, removing it each and every sound of any breeze. _

_ The sobs, again, and then again and again and again, rise above the noise of rattling, flapping wings and deafening thunder. _

_ He hears his own name carried across the fields, along with words he does not recognize or care to hear. Dan’s hair flutters in the wind, but he stands unmoving, too far away to see him. Too far away to get down from the dangers above. _

Phil startles. He startles with such an ache in his chest that it almost beats out his heartache. Almost.

The wind rattles the windows, the leaves outside flutter in the wind. It’s still dark, but not a star is in sight. Phil’s not sure of what to think anymore, of his dreams as well as the natural phenomenons of the Caledonian highlands.

His hair is standing, and his mouth is acidic. He leaves his room, figuring not hiding his warned expression is a clever move. The gods seem to approve.

Coming to a halt in the kitchen, he leans against the counter and catches his breath. He doesn’t understand anything he sees or hears within those lands anymore, as if the non-physical plane has collapsed into a singular pile with no order or direction.

It’s scary, utterly terrifying, and it makes him short of breath. 

The sudden urge to tell his mother about the dreams hits him- Maybe he should.

⁂

Dan shields his eyes from the rays of sun that fall from high up in the sky. The trees do no good at shielding them, with their lack of leaves, and yet Phil seems to be less worried about that than he is. He’s hunched over his scythe and mumbling blessings to every god under the sun, like Dan does during his own rituals.

It’s not unusual practice, but his skill still amazes him. Like the dance the light does across his ginger hair, and the way it stains the freckles dark.

Many things about Phil amazes him.

A scoff pulls him back to reality. Phil’s still crouched on the ground, but he’s wearing a smirk that Dan doesn’t see often, and he looks utterly self-assured when he reaches his hand out to him. It’s such a contrast to his demeanour a couple of days ago, and it takes him back a little.

“Are you going to help me, or what?” Phil scoffs, and  _ okay? _ he just went from self-assured to cocky and rude. He wasn’t expecting that, and so his eyes widen.

Phil sighs, gently pushing himself off the ground by himself. “Okay, that was rude. I’m sorry.” he says, his features softening and his voice lowering. “Would you like to bring the bucket, please, Dan?” He gestures down at the rusty old thing he placed by Dan’s feet before.

He nods, and does as he’s told. He won’t be bitchy about Phil’s behaviour, not when the safety of the whole harvest is in their hands.

The golden drops in the bucket splash across the field when Phil swings it around. The droplets jump, then, like stones on water, and skip atop the plants into the distance. In the dimness that’s slowly sinking upon the hills they glow, gold wayfinders set alight.

Phil watches the beacons with intent, and Dan’s eyes circle in on his like a hawk’s. They’re as blue as ever, but the potion has made the yellows stand out even more. The corners crinkle, his white smile growing.

Rubbing his hands together, Phil excitedly goes back behind him and picks up his first vial. The liquid within swirls, a deep green colour. “Right!” he laughs, Dan startling again as he comes up close behind his back. “Would you mind holding this for me, darling?”

Humming, he tries to ignore both the way his crevice tingles from Phil’s presence, and the slight buzz in his head that appears and overpowers his other thoughts at the nickname. 

Then he takes the vial with gentle, nimble hands. It smells sickly, even with the cap still screwed on tight. In another vial, Phil mixes together drops of different potions, altering the amounts to better suit his needs.

When he finally stands again, Dan’s legs are jelly and the sky is growing darker in a more natural way. With one look at the sky, Phil’s smile falters a little, but it doesn’t seem to deter him completely. 

“You’re sure we’ll be able to finish before the night falls?”

Phil’s lip, caught between his teeth, twitches, and then he nods. Dan has to clear his head quicker than he’s ever had to before when he turns to face him again, making sure his blush isn’t too visible with a swish of his hair. 

“If we work fast enough, then yes.” he states, moving forwards with his process immediately. He snatches the final vial from Dan’s hands, catching him by surprise, and then gets to work. Properly, this time.

He spreads liquid across each patch of field, moving through the prickly rye with Dan following close behind. A sigh is near on Dan’s lips each time he falls and has to be caught, but he cowers it with a wet laugh as much as he can. He shan’t fall into self-pity during a task such as this.

Each plant gets covered in the liquids, the earth beneath their feet trampled down and the weeds withering as the golden droplets fall upon their leaves like stars. By the time they’ve passed about half the field, the dusk shines upon them and reflects everything with a rosé gold.

The breeze catches up, moving the billowy harvest with its every touch and movement. To speed them up, Phil hands him a vial himself and they move in different directions, which thankfully helps him just a little bit to focus. He felt stuffed being so close to his friend, and not knowing why the air between them stinged his lungs so badly wasn’t helping that feeling to disappear.

Yellow and glittering, the whole field is shortly done as a product of their effectivity. And unfortunately their distance, which scares Dan to the core.

The tension still simmering in the air doesn’t feel right, but he’s not sure what he has done to cause it. Or if not him, who or what could’ve.

Phil smiles widely at him when he meets him at the edge of the field. His sweat his dripping visibly down his face, coating every visible piece of his pale skin, and his ears are fiery red. Dan can’t help but to laugh at his disheveled looks, no matter how pretty he looks.

“Stop teasing!” Phil whines, poking him in the side. “You look all the same, anyways.”

That cuts him short. He eyes his untied shoes and his lathered shorts with an expression of absolute mistrust. “Do I? I thought you said I look like I always do. Does that mean I always look like a mess?”

With a sigh Phil sinks to his knees, tying his laces before he’s able to jump away. “No, you look gorgeous and well put together, as always. I’m only  _ messing  _ with you.”

Ignoring the stab at his heart, and the butterflies inside his tummy, Dan laughs along as Phil’s chest erupts with the clear sound, making him properly fall to his knees. 

“You massive spork!” he shouts, eyes brimmed with acidic tears. Despite the feeling of utter joy and happiness gurgling beneath the surface, it feels like he’s swallowed a lemon whole and it’s burning in his throat as well as clogging it up.

His breath comes short as Phil leans in close, eyes still crinkled, and envelops him in a massive bearhug. “Of course I am… because we’re so incredibly alike.”

Dan doesn’t move as his stomach somersaults, twice in a row. 

Once he’s let go, there’s only three things on his mind. His floral soap, the view of his wide shoulders, and the fact that the tension is still filling the air. With the wind in his face Dan stands still for a while while Phil takes most of the harvest in, and the tears almost begin to fall until his name is gently called.

He needs to get his shit together; get over himself. Like the breeze moving over a destroyed landscape, he just needs to collect the pieces and run with whatever he has left.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw food

The stars move slowly across the sky. The mug in Phil’s hand torches his skin, as cold as the night is, but it’s a good distraction despite the severity of the pain.

He has been sat in the kitchen for almost two hours now, after being unable to sleep. A buzzing travels like a constant through his every organ, indistinguishable at times but mostly just constricting. A lump stops the air from leaving his lungs, and his limbs weigh him down.

He only recognizes it as heartbreak from what Dan has told him about his own experience with it. 

The truth sits in front of him, clear as day. He knows very well he’ll end up under the same covers as Dan and that that’s the only thing that’ll bring him to sleep at this point, but if he ignores the thoughts they may go away.

It will hurt more, or at least he thinks so, if he curls up next to Dan, his desires blooming at the closeness, full well knowing they’ll only ever be friends. There might’ve been a point in time when they could’ve moved past that point, but Dan has made it clear where his position today stands on this delicate topic.

_ go back to being just friends _

Shaking his head, Phil takes another sip from his tea, which fortunately won’t rouse his sleep like coffeé would. The clouds pass by, shadowing the moon, and the trees dance in the wind. With most of the leaves gone, the branches stand barren and naked towards the winter sky, like eerie skeletons of their former selves.

_ go back to being just friends _

That’s sort of what he feels like right now. Cold, barren, empty, a shell of the typical energetic Phil Lester, with his pointy ears and toothy smile. A mother who dotes him and a best friend he also loves.

_ go back to being just friends _

A friend who doesn’t wish to be loved.

The buzzing in his chest returns, this time stronger and almost clawing into his chest.

The stars glitter on the windowsill, catching his attention for a second or two. The emptiness is settling beneath his eyes, making it impossible to focus on one thing for very long. Even his breath feels heavy on his tongue, starchy and strong.

Still, he notices how dim they look. As if over the last few days a grainy, grey haze has passed over them.

_ go back to being just friends _

Phil flies from the stool, head ice cold and tongue dry in his mouth. The tea splashes out across the counter and his bare, hairy legs, something he doesn’t notice until the splatters of liquid audibly shatter on the floor.

He’s panting, too, he finds, heart racing and beating like a drum against his ribs, hard as the words that fill his mind to the brim. That also explains his dry throat. 

Trembling, he reaches for the cup and puts it right. The buzzing has traveled all the way out to the tips of his fingers, now, and it hurts to even move.

With a silent tremble in his jaw, he makes his way through the house. The urge becomes too much, and he doesn’t want to make it worsen, or have the ache twist and hurt even more the longer he goes without sleep.

The door to the moon room falls open at Phil’s lightest touch. It’s dark in here, darker than the world outside, and yet it’s somehow less bleak. Most likely has something to do with Dan’s presence, his gorgeous aura radiating around and bouncing off the walls, but he won’t let that thought go longer than he wants it to.

_ go back to being just friends _

Phil feels a pressure build in his eyes as he approaches the bed on unsteady legs.

His breath steadies as Dan’s body comes into view, only half-covered by the blanket. His tan skin breathes pearlescent air, glowing within the darkness like a beacon of hope. 

Phil feels himself come to a halt, then. His eyes fall onto the wide hole in his arched back, the treelike cavity, and his stomach twists. Then there’s a breath, a beat, and a silence of silent decision making.

_ go back to being just friends _

Dan slots into his side once again once he hits the covers, a perfect, beautiful puzzle piece. His arms slide around his midriff, and his face presses into his shoulder for a moment before coming to rest on his chest. Phil’s breath steadies for a second, as usual, and then catches back up as Dan’s chapped lips begin to move. 

“ _ Knew you’d be ‘ere… _ ” he whispers, gently and unsteadily. 

His hair smells of earth, forest, spices, and that classic musky Dan smell he has never found the source of. His curls bounce beneath his breath, dark and beautiful. His eyelids flutter, but not for long enough to open his eyes to the world. A steady calm rouses within Phil at the sight.

And then the scuffed edges of his cupids bow makes contact with Phil’s chest. His breath rouses the forest on his chest, and then, with a sigh, his mouth falls to a stop between his pecs, still partially turned away.

Dan’s lips suddenly move rhythmically, catching him off guard with a steady succession of kisses. 

Phil’s heart strangles. Moving from utterly terrible heartbreak to  _ this  _ makes him feel like he’s going to have a stroke. And yet Dan’s warmth radiates even through his lips, and it stills him for a moment like he remembers them -though elsewhere on his body-. 

Their movement is wet, and sloppy, as obvious as that’s made by the fact that he’s asleep. But the contact on his skin is still determined, and forceful in a decidedly gentle way.

Beneath the touch Phil doesn’t squirm. He tenses up instead, everywhere but where the kiss loosens the anxiety crawling beneath his skin. He forces his eyes shut only to be met with cold sweat, his inner voice begging for more despite how much he screams for it to stop speaking about impossible things.

With each time the very-much-asleep-Dan moves them away, the more desperately he seems to push them back, his breathing heavy as he mumbles words between each direct peck.

_ go back to being just friends _

_ He doesn’t know it’s me,  _ powers through Phil’s mind, ploughing his self-esteem down.  _ He doesn’t think it’s me he’s kissing. _

The pressure behind his eyes builds. He can’t have his mind remember what this sensation feels like. 

_ He’s dreaming of somebody else. In his head his lips caress someone else’s body. He tastes someone else’s skin. _

He definitely can’t move. He can’t even alert Dan to what he’s doing, or he’ll freak. 

_ Dan can’t mean what he’s doing. He can’t. He’s teasing me, he’s mocking me- _

And then, as if to prove him wrong, the words on Dan’s hazy end suddenly become audible. “ _ -love you. I love you- I love you-”  _ he whispers, following a soft moan, strangulating his heart over and over. And then his voice crackles beneath the kisses.

“ _ P-phil-”  _ His whimpers shoot straight through his heart, and Phil’s fingers clench around themselves as Dan interrupts his own voice with another moan.

_ “I love- I love you, Phil- I-” _

Tingles rise up Phil’s side, a blush, heavy with equal amounts of attraction and lust and heartbreak, spreading across his warm face. 

Guilt rises up in his chest, too, breaking the bubble-like moment into tiny fragments of glass. It’s too intimate. It’s too secret. Even if what he’s saying is true, then Phil shouldn’t even know.

⁂

When Dan woke that morning he’d felt confused, to say the least. And now, standing in their kitchen with a cup of tea while Phil’s rummaging through his room, he feels even more confused.

He’d had a nice dream. A really nice dream.

He usually dreams about Phil, but it’s not always they make him feel... like this. Light, feathery.

Phil’s chest had been bare, his hair dancing in the moving air and with each breath. His crystal eyes had glown, blue and sad but open and loving all the same. He’d looked beautiful, and so powerful yet vulnerable, like the gods above. 

Like out on the cliff so long ago, they’d been leaning close together, whispering nothings and everythings. And then, like when they usually crawled into bed together, he’d wrapped himself around Phil.

Even now his heart beats out of his chest, the memory rising to the forefront of his mind.

Dream-Dan had been brave enough, with no fears and no decisions layed out behind him stopping him from telling his Phil he loves him. He’d kissed him, too, delicately tasting his floral scents and whispering his  _ I-love-yous _ .

Phil's skin had crawled, and his arms had tensed in his grip, but then the movement of his lips had visibly loosened each knot in his stomach. His head had sunk against the top of Dan’s, and then he’d lifted his chin, connecting their mouths instead as their heartbeats synced.

Their arms roamed, grazing and nipping at each piece of skin they could grasp. Yet it had been so delicate, so loving, so tender and sweet that the feelings that rose within him had not been about desperation and relieving tension -sexual or otherwise- but about telling him how much he cared.

How much he loved him.

He’s only confused because it felt too real. 

So real, in fact, that he still tastes the tastes on his tongue and feels hair run across his hands, feels the heaviness of Phil’s arms clasping him tight. 

So real that when he woke in the middle of the tender, melting kiss, his heart shattered seeing the bed empty, and his feet turned to lead when realization hit him.

Even now there’s a weight in his chest.

The sound of feet in the distance makes him wary, but he still runs his tongue across the chapped surface, distinctly remembering the tones of lavender and sparkling wisteria.

His heart jumps up into his throat when Phil stumbles through the door. As he steadies himself, swallowing down the guilt and the butterflies and the embarrassment, he can’t help but notice the beads of sweat rolling down Phil’s temples, and the unnatural swish of his red hair.

Phil’s blue eyes fly around the room erratically, as if looking desperately for something. They flicker and land on Dan for a second. Brief as it is, he feels himself squirm beneath the heavy-lidded look he gets.

“Er… do you need something?”

Shaking his head, Phil rushes back out the door again. Eyebrows creasing, Dan stares after him, confusion only settling heavier in his chest.

A few minutes later he comes back into the sunlit room, with more gentle steps and a straighter back. He leans against the doorframe, his eyes glistening but determinately turned away from Dan, and despite the feeling of the tea sloshing down his esophagus being present it feels like his throat has closed up tight. 

After a short silence, Phil turns his head and his eyes meet his own. They look guilty. Guilty of what, he can’t tell.

“I’m going to visit my parent’s.” Phil blurts, his cheeks so red he cocks an eyebrow at him.

“That’s alright.” Dan assures, despite an uneasiness hitting his fragile mind. “You worried about something outside of that?” 

Shaking his head, Phil turns away again. “You just look out of your element.” he shrugs, taking another sip. “And I worry. I care, just so you know.”

At that, Phil smiles, his teeth glittering as the light reflects off them. Dan feels an explosion go off in his stomach, the butterflies wreaking havoc again, and he smiles, too, catching his infectious happiness no matter the undertones. “I’ll be sure to tell you if I need anything, then.”

Dan hopes he will. No matter how far away he is.

⁂

Phil’s mind is heavy with the movement still lingering on his chest. It hasn’t left since he crawled out of bed.

Outside the window the barren fields roll by, the tears from above smattering on the glass. In splashes of colour, the landscape swishes away from the car, the gravel beneath the wheels shaking it up every once in a while. 

The driver is playing a song unfamiliar to Phil, most likely from the common human world. Despite how closely knitted the communities of non-magical and different magical beings are, he himself rarely hears or interacts with them. It’s been like that since he moved out.

His parents, like so many other elves, live on the other side of the forest on an island in a lake. The ride there feels excruciatingly slow, but now for entirely different reasons than normally. 

The newfound information, that conflicts with everything else Dan has said, and the entire memory of the night weighs him down. Like sprouts tangling around the base of a tree trunk, the thoughts strangle his breath and his judgement.

When the car pulls up to his parents’ house, Phil pays and gets out with shaking hands. The nerves come back, full force.

The facade is a deep pastel green, newly painted based on the darkness of the colour and the lyster it still has in the lack of sun. The roof is slanted and black, and the general size is bigger than their little cottage back home in the forest. All around there are houses of similar size, and unlike them he and Dan don’t have many neighbours.

Pulling him into a hug atop their doorstep, his mum cradles him warmly and whispers her gratitude. “Let’s get you a cup of tea and warm you up, darling.” she says as she squeezes his cold hands.

He follows her inside, the laced carpet scratchy beneath his boots, and the old-fashioned lights in the hallway dim and dull, like his existence.

Phil swallows hard, and forces a half-hearted shaky smile in the direction of his father, who waves from the armchair. He’ll try to be okay, if not for them only. He’ll ask her for advice, for mother always knows best. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw mention of animal injury, food

The forest dances with itself, the dark, coarse-grained trees moving both with the wind and swaying rhythmically around each other. As always they’re alive, in more ways than one. 

Dan watches them rise towards the sky, filled with life and living things, like he watched the young ones sprout and grow so many years ago. With wonder and amazement in his eyes.

Eyes clad with indifference, honey circles within dressed in silent disappointment. He’s trying to ignore that part himself, the bouts of confusion still strong and swirling in his chest.

Work is tiresome, he has come to realize, without Phil by his side. Each step through the magical woods heavy and begrudging, and each long second of magical usage pounds straight through his bones. He’s as sure as he swears by Agrona that he’s feeling the repercussions of his decisions and words now, despite however many days he spent considering his options.

It had seemed to so easy, then. Don’t go beyond being friends with Phil, and therefore keep Phil as his friend. No matter how that disregarded his strongest feelings.

A deer scuttles by in the distance, its ears flapping as it barely passes a glance in Dan’s direction. Its big doe eyes, despite their dark nutty colours, remind him of Phil’s, with their luster and wide wondering look. The long face and pointy jaw -snout-, covered in sparkling freckles, settles in his mind like a comparison already made. The pointy, flapping ears are a given, too.

Dan watches the animal sail away through the greenery, which is not so green anymore. The branches are barren of leaves and only lichen, moss, and the occasional fern persists in full colour and bloom, shading the greyish ground and bark with splashes of brightness.

Emptiness and confusion still buzzes beneath his skin.

Despite his heavy winter boots, layered with fur, and the magic that runs through his veins, Dan shivers. It’s cold enough, that even this morning a light frost had covered the ground, predicting colder weather yet to come.

A light breeze tugs on his jacket and hair. Phil’s nagging voice, despite his absence, echoes in his head, reminding him of all the reasons he should wear a hat. With the numbness of his cheeks he barely dares to smile, but a flashed half-smirk slips out all the same.

Little will make you believe that two weeks ago, this forest was full of life and bloom, the rivers loudly roaring, and the undergrowth taken to its own roaming form.

Now no birdsong can be heard, only the scuffling of awake feet breaking the tiresome silence beneath the barren, leafless, almost dead canopy. The one positive is the sky is the clearest it can be for stargazing, this this time of year, unless there’s heavy snowfall. 

But watching the movement of the celestial bodies above is not as appealing to do alone as it is with  _ someone _ else. So, not even a spark of joy appears in his cramping chest at the fleeting thought.

As his steps crackle and break bristle, fallen leaves and branches, Dan trudges on.

Then, his arms wrapped around him and shielding him from cold, he’s caught off guard by pleading whimpers from within the brush. His hands drop, and his eyebrows furrow, all of his instincts urging him to find the source of the sound.

Out of the thorn bush Dan picks a small, velvety, and trembling mole. Thankfulness washes over him, both when seeing its need for help is justified, and for deciding to wear gloves.

A prickly piece of thorn has wrapped itself around its hand, and the bleeding is decently severe. He finds himself wincing, knowing very well he himself only just escaped such hurt and pain.

While not used to his touch, or having met him at all, the little chap still knows the guardian by heart, like all other animals of the Caledonian forest. And so it immediately trusts him, snuggling into his palm and its whimpers softening.

“You don’t seem to be doing so okay here, little guy,” Dan cooes, sinking to the forest floor. The mole rolls around, then, whining even more in pain. “Okay, okay! I’ll help you. Fast as I can, fast as I can...”

With one hand he gently untangles the thorn, and with the other he holds him, stroking gently at the velvety, curved back with his thumb. The heartshattering cries tug at his heart, invoking each set of parental, guardian, and protective instincts he has that apply.

As he heals the wounds with magic, Dan can’t help but be reminded of Phil. 

Skin soft to the touch, half-blindness and scrunched eyes without his glasses or contacts, and the blunt appreciation of Dan’s caring hand. 

He ignores the flushing of his face to awe over the way the mole snuggles up in his hand. He urges it with his other, keeping it awake, and then places it softly on the ground.

Unfortunately, that’s goodbye. As it scuttles away in the undergrowth, the feeling of disappointment and mild confusion returns. It’s with a pout and an itching emptiness he continues with his patrol.

⁂

The fragrances of tea swirls in the air.

Phil leans back in his chair, listening to his mum scrambling and clattering the pots and pans. He hopes the homely, briny, enticing smell of stew can distract his mind and detense the electricity running through the air. It’s sweaty behind his eyelid, his palms barely cling to the rough oak edge of the table, and all but the hum of his mother’s voice seems to flood his mind. 

It’s overwhelming, to say the least.

There’s still a lingering buzz clamping to his heart, within his heaving chest, but mostly he simply feels like he can cry rivers to make both hurt and questions go away.

The lace blinds they’ve kept since he was a child flutter, the winter light glittering palely like the ghost of a dawn in the window, and then shining through. A decent frost coats the ground and windowsill, even so far into the day.

The clatter of pottery makes his eyes fly open, painlessly regaining all of his senses.

His mum, a knowing look in her eye and ginger bob swishing around like an unsteady frame of her face, hands him a cup filled to the brim and he takes it gratefully.

“Thanks mum.” Phil mumbles, taking a sip of the hot liquid after shooting her a stretched, strained smile. Kath keeps her words to herself, simply glancing worriedly at him when he sighs, rousing the surface with a breeze. Creating ripples.

With winter coming almost too soon, she has given him one of his old, deep-green sweaters to wear. The arms fall down across his lanky, shaking fingers, being oversized, and the knots in the fabric nip at his skin. He doesn’t complain, however. Anything of the sort is better than being both miserable, conflicted, and freezing your tits off.

_ Freezing your tits off… _ Phil thinks, mildly puzzled by his own choice of words.  _ That’s something Dan would say. _

Dan.

Dan who he loves so, Dan who seems to never think through his decisions and choice of words, not even based on his own train of thought. The person that has caused all of these feelings. The buzz aching in his chest being a making of his.

Phil knows that’s the topic right on the tip of his mum’s tongue. He sees it on her face even when she’s not looking his way, in the way she moves, and knows it’s the reason her doting is more caring, yet more tense and careful. As if she wants to help him with all the fibers of her being, but is also waiting for hims to spill the beans on his feelings.

He stretches, then, catlike and tall, clearing his head with an audible yawn. Then he pats his tummy, pouting as it grumbles. That makes his mum chuckle.

“Hungry, Philip?” she asks, laughter still on her lips.

“How can’t I be? You’re cooking, after all.”

He doesn’t miss her grateful grin.

Once dinner’s served, Phil and Kathryn are joined at the table by Nigel and Martyn. Turns out his older brother arrived 24 hours before, and has been hiding out in his room for most of the day, either asleep or texting his new -and longest standing- girlfriend.

“Don’t be rude. Her name’s Cornelia, actually. She’s a Huldra.” Martyn sighs, ruffling Phil’s hair. His eyes glazed with syrup, and his voice almost overly adoring. Phil wants to roll his very own eyes. “She’s from up north. Sweden. Comes to visit twice a month but she’s actually looking for her own place in Edinburgh.”

Looking proud but only half-interested, their father nods before swallowing another spoonful. “So, how is she?”

“Really lovely, and empathetic. She’s strong and independent, but also is utterly ridiculous. Her swinglish accent is the most adorable thing, and so are her curls. They’re ginger, too,” he says, twirling a lock of hair between his fingers as he speaks, look dazed. 

He continues when no one stops him. “Recently she took her degree in musical engineering. She’s also an artist and has been on some famous shows in her home country, which is really impressive. Though despite her vast repertoire, she seems to be obsessed with Tubular Bells lately.” 

In a low voice, Phil jokes that he hopes she hasn’t murdered his brother’s neighbours. That makes him roar with laughter. And yet, a second later, Martyn catches the distant look in his eye.

A smirk flashes across his face, and dread surges in Phil’s stomach. He knows exactly where this’ll lead, and yet he’s never quite ready.

“So, how’s your love-life developing?” Martyn says, ignoring the bright flush that floods his little brother’s face. “Asked Danny out yet? Little forest nymph?”

Lip strung between teeth, Phil firmly shakes his head. He tries his best to keep the angry words out his mouth and the destructive thoughts out of his vulnerable mind. It’s difficult when you’ve recently had all your dreams crushed, and had the cause flipped right on its head.

“Noone.  _ Especially  _ not Dan…” The last part slips out as barely a whisper, straining his voice and clutching his heart.

“Really?”

Holding back the tears that suddenly push to the surface, fighting against the pounding into his skull, he shakes his head again.  _ He won’t understand, of course, _ He thinks, suddenly almost quipping for breath.

Martyn’s blue eyes blow wide like the dinner plates. “And I thought you’d have gained enough courage to ask him by now… No way he’ll say no-” That’s when Phil tunes him out.

Just as he debates whether to burst into tears right here at the table, or to run off to his room, Kath chimes in with a cough. He’s reminded he’ll always be grateful for his mother.

“That’s enough, Martyn.”

The pout on his brother's face isn’t missed. “I was on-”

“I said that’s enough.” she reaffirms, placing a hand over Martyn’s, and giving her youngest a pleading but empathetic look. “My child, won’t you eat some more of the stew? You must still be hungry, as you said.”

Knowing full well it’s his only escape, that he’s actually sitting on a rumbling stomach, and that he could never refuse his mother’s kindest smile, Phil nods. Not a second later he’s scoffing down the food, smell of beef snaking up his nose, and eyes desperately boring into the sludge.

He wishes he could just disappear. That the bad thoughts and words that follow him go away.

A couple of minutes later, when all four of them are on their third helping or beyond, Kath brings up another topic to try and melt some of the tension away. While uneasiness still cramps his shoulders up, Phil tries his best to involve himself in the conversation.

They’re all laughing at some aimless joke when his parents’ deeply green ficus spire catches his eye, bringing his mind to plants. Laughter still ringing in his ears, he asks the first question that comes to mind. After all, Martyn has his own fields to tend to, too. 

“You got all your harvest done on time, then, Mar?”

His brother chuckles, and then brushes hair out of his face. “Yes, actually. I was early this time ‘round, instead of almost missing prime time. Might’ve had something to do with having my mates there to help though, for once, but what do I know.”

Phil feels himself nod, despite how heavily his head sits on his shoulders. Though what it is that he’s agreeing with, he’s not exactly sure of himself.

“What about you then, son?” Nigel inquires, an eyebrow quirked and hand intertwined with Kathryn’s, whose lips are tugging into a heartwarming smile.

“We got it all over with just on the brink of winter this year,” he explains, and suddenly the whole atmosphere shifts. Despite the thinning of Martyn’s mouth and his mother’s careful, questioning glance, he presses on as much as he dares. “There were some complications, and so w- I got delayed.”

They know he’s never late. They now he always tries to be early, especially for something as carefully timed as the harvest, and its preparations. Still, they move on, not asking him anything more that might give away what’s hidden in his riling brain.

Phil’s bones itch. The only thing keeping him seated now is the way Martyn respectfully diverts his gaze, giving him some space.

_ This’ll be a long night,  _ he thinks, and then asks for another portion so he can shut his mouth up before it even has a chance to spew everything out.

⁂ 

Kathryn wakes at 1am to the sound of soft crying. It disperses as quickly as she heard it, and soon the room is occupied by only her, Nigel’s snores next to her, and the heavy shadows dancing across the blankets. Still, her motherly instincts switch to high alert, with both her sons in the house, and the wary uneasiness she feels forces her out of bed.

Casting a glance at her husband’s aged yet beautiful Elven face before she leaves, she at least has a smile on her own while she creeps down the stairs of her own darkened home.

Outside, the stars sparkle atop the blanket of black, deep and beautiful like the ocean she and Nigel go to see every year. A light snowfall has bespeckled the lawn, not much unlike seafoam, and it’s with a sorrowful sigh she turns away from the beauty that glitters around the house.

Tea is always the best remedy for a lack of sleep. Kath has taught her two sons so since they were born, and it’s been worthwhile. Now Martyn’s as inklined to drinking tea as coffeé, something he shares with the gal they’re both certain will be her daughter-in-law, and Phil can brew anything under the sun.

Most impressive is his affinity with lavender tea, a trade secret he is making a point of not sharing with anyone. Except Dan. It’s always  _ except Dan. _

While she’d usually not have a problem with that -she adores the boy- in the current situation it does sting a bit to Kathryn.

With his words from earlier, despite how mundane they may sound to the untrained ear, reeked of pain and echo in her head. She knows Phil well. She knows her youngest baby boy well, and he knows so too. It’s a product of always loving and caring and doting for him so. The best is the very least she could give him in life.

She knows something’s wrong; it rarely surpasses her. And yet if he’ll bare his feelings on his own is yet to be seen.

A warm cup in her hand and a spoon in the other, Kath plops down with a sigh on the sofa. Sinking into the plump verdure-checkered pillows, her mind gears up for confronting the probable truth.

There has never been many problems, animosities erupting between Dan and Phil. They’ve lived together for many years now, almost ten, and it’s a true miracle that they always get along so well. A product of their hard work, communication, but mostly impeccable chemistry that blossoms even in the most difficult of situations. Like she cares for them, they care for each other.

And yet with her son being so reluctant in detailing their setback, she’s faced with the fact that this is beyond skin deep, beyond just the physical world.

Something to do with feelings, his heart, and Dan’s too.

His reaction to Martyn’s news and comments worries Kath the most. She knows the signs of bursting into tears, especially on her son’s face, and she saw that now. That’s a very bad, bad sign.

Stirring her sugar in, she comes to the realization that has always waited for her, and been awaited, in a way.

A part of her always knew. Over the years, all of the teasing comments, and the reasons for Daniel visiting them has had some basis in reality. Even if Phil’d sometimes -most times- flush and deny them with a quick, witty comment or a quip of his sharp mouth.

She knows her son well enough to know when he’s in love, even if it’s the first time he has been. She’s got enough intuition, and so does all the other’s underneath her roof, to sense chemistry and sparks when it’s pushed in their face. It’s the same with Martyn, right now. It’s a flash across your face, a look in your eye, a twitch of a finger, and a special tone of voice you won’t even notice.

It’s ingrained in Kathryn, a remembrance from each and every moment she herself has been in love herself, and has seen it around. It lingers, now, and has been since she first fell.

With Phil it’s painfully obvious, and always has been. Despite how vague he’s tried being when asking her for advice during their midnight chats.

Another sigh rolls across Kath’s lips, and she swallows it down with the rest of her tea.

All that stays with her, and hopefully won’t have to for long, from her wise, reeling mind tonight is that she’ll have to wait for her son to come to her. Wait for him, as always, so he can get used to things and come to terms with asking her for advice at his own pace. 

Wait for him, wait for the truth. Wait to know if his turmoil stems from heartbreak or something way off.

⁂

Once he approaches, Dan swears to himself that he shan’t and never should’ve come back to this place.

The moss on the ground is familiar beneath his feet, the stone is as rough to the touch as he remembers, and the distance down to the river flowing below the cliff seems the same to his eyes. His nose twitches in the cold winter air, and he’s then certain at that point that he can still smell the soap Phil had washed himself with that same day.

They had sat so close they were one. Their hands had shakily roamed. His skin had been only inches away from his beating heart, pressed up close. His blue eyes bored into his being, and his lips had tasted as sweet as he had imagined before pressing them together. 

His throat goes dry at the thought, his lips trembling as they search for familiar traction.

Knives thrust through his heart, his head, his leg, bringing back the ache that temporarily left him as numbness washed upon him in the wake of memory. He falls to his knees, throbbing in pain, and despite the tears pushing at the back of his eyes he tries to stay level-headed.

That’s when something dawns upon Dan, rising from the depths of self destruction and hurt within his mind.

Despite all the heartbreak and rejection he’s been subject to in his life, his own hasty decision may have lost the one thing he barely tasted; the one thing he was the closest to getting, keeping, but couldn’t bare himself to.

He stands, swiveling on the spot and rushing back home along the unused path, still denying his tearing feelings and forcing denial upon the newly developed thoughts.

⁂

Thrashing the air, Dan’s feet fly across mossy stone and over broken twigs.

The trees he pass become twisted silhouettes of themselves against the horizon alight, their fiery shadows growing longer and bluer the lower the sun sinks. His heart beats out of his chest, moving with the rhythm of the forest floor beneath him. Passing creek after creek, meadow after meadow, he runs to escape both his emotions but also the timeless, idle existence he’ll pray to if he stays.

Sparkles burst on the deepening, infinite sky, falling upon the course earth with glistening bands of stardust following them. Their multicoloured bodies reflect in his eyes, contrastingly colourful to his stark brown eyes and their honey glow.

Passing through the highlands at ravishing speed, Dan finally reaches open ground as the last drop of golden sunlight splashes upon the barren fields and hills. Then it all disappears beyond his sights, and he falls to a stop just as the top of the cottage extends above the crown of the hill.

Home.

The barren birch walls exposed to the elements, the ornate tiles atop weathered but still sparkling in the moonlight, and the little fence surrounding the front of the garden all encase their little world.

A world that looks bleak and empty to Dan. No smoke puffs out of the chimney, dancing with the long branches of the tall trees above. No light filters out through the blinds, splattering the ground in honey, a sign of life and a welcoming pair of open arms. No warm dinner waiting for him, made by the oh so caring Phil.

He’s been out for longer than usual, yes, which would typically mean no welcome at all until dawn comes again, and Phil has any right to visit his own flesh and blood. 

But something about coming home with no Phil waiting for him, despite him not already walking by his side, feels like a shot to his heart. He feels stumped, really, as the silence slowly sinks into his bones.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve Phil’s caring ways, his sleepy breath on his skin, to see the way his eyes seem to light up each time he comes through the door after work. The swish of his ginger hair in the morning, the many tricks he’s got for his fascinating potion making and wonderful plants.

Entering the blacked-out hallway instills the silence and emptiness in Dan’s chest.

No clumsy footsteps reach his ears, but his own, as he tramples in on the wooden flooring.

The bright living room stands encased in dullness and the reminiscence of nostalgic echo.

The void left by Phil’s presence in the kitchen sets something off in his heart, like nails dig into the flesh, bile rising in his throat. 

The darkness floods each inch of their home, and then washes upon his mind, rising to his ears in a suffocating way, and pushing out tears. The feeling is worse, so much worse, than being rejected and wallowing in heartbreak. And that’s happened to him plenty.

Dan collapses on his bed, not bothering taking off his clothes or light a single bulb, falling asleep in the murky sea of loneliness before he can shed a single drop.

His dreams become occupied by only green-yellow-blue irises, filling the lack of such a sight still present in his heart, and the house.

Exhausted. He feels truly emptied and drained, emotionally, and also physically to counteract the first one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vocab:  
> Agrona - goddess of war and slaughter
> 
> thanks for reading! Prepare yourselves for the next ones, you’ll need it ;)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, uh, tws for this chapter.. as long as you’ve read the tags you’re in the clear *cough*

Dan doesn’t want to open his eyes when he wakes from his unsteady sleep, feeling tired and clammy and having slept in past noon. The covers weigh him down, like stones, and the fabric sticks to his skin like glue. All around the room darkness swirls, extending into his mind which is stuffed full with numbing cotton.

A lump has settled in his throat during the night, brought on after he forced down the urges of crying. The skin on his face itches, red and flushed from the tears trying to force themselves out between his lashes, putting pressure on his sockets.

Twinges flare up, invoking hope. Hope and dreams and prayers that Phil’s course, shirtless, hairy body is laying next to his, tangled up in the same covers. That he’ll find so out if he flings his arm out.

There’s a thud and then a sigh from the mattress when his hand makes contact. He exhales to match, a blaze of disappointment roaring in his head and heart. This time he doesn’t try to force it down.

Thinking back to all he’s ever said, all he’s ever done, all that’s ever happened to him, Dan examines his past for whatever he could’ve done wrong. Whatever happened to make him feel like this as soon as Phil -his gorgeous best friend- isn’t in his bed after a terrible night.

Phil would, despite still living with his parents and having duties of his own in the elven community, follow Dan out into the highlands and woods when he began working on his own. Not before, since his predecessor hadn’t wanted anyone to pry during his training, but he hadn’t minded that so much. Being alone with Phil is and always was better.

In the golden light, filtering through the emerald leaves, his dyed black hair shone like stones in the river during high sunlit tide, or a raven gliding beneath the moonlight. His freckles danced across his lanky arms, his skin sparkling like snow in moonlight on a dark winter’s night. 

Blue and mysterious, and certainly more enticing than caring for any animal -no matter how much he likes them-, his eyes were very much something to get lost in. Even now, head pressed into his pillow, Dan feels himself melt while imagining that heavy-lidded, hooded look Phil sometimes gives and gave him.

After first scouting out the cottage, they’d spend all summer months there together, and eventually Dan settled. Phil had said something about not thinking Dan could feed himself properly  _ and _ work long nights, which they both know was a poor, giggly excuse. Still, he hadn’t called him out and two were soon calling it home.

Almost every night they cuddled up in bed together, praying on each other’s warmth, whether it be on the sofa or in a bed. Sometimes Dan was brave enough, kissing his already asleep cheek goodnight. And despite all of their self restraint, they always ended up tangled in each other’s limbs.

Only recently does it seem like Phil leaves before he has a chance to stir, and it hurts, properly stings, that he has had to find out on his own.

Though he can’t quite blame that on Phil.

Phil, who, despite Dan’s wallowing, always cares and waits out the storm. Endures his constant rambles, be they about rejection, morality, or existance. Sacrifices his time and energy on someone so pathetically indecisive as Dan.

Through each one of Dan’s heartbreak he’s been supportive, reminded him they wouldn’t have deserved his love anyways. Phil, at the same time, being reinvented in his mind as the bigger, better person. Because it’s true; he’s kind. Always. And his looks don’t inflate his ego, nor push down that kindness.

The most beautiful being to have ever walked the earth, who gives him lustful looks and reaffirms his worth with heartfelt compliments, no matter how little he feels he deserves them. Respects boundaries despite how against his desires they go; no matter how much he’d like Dan to go through with his teasing. A thing he seems to be unable to do, even though he wants to, too.

That Phil is the lover Dan loves, and keeps so dear, close in his heart.

The lover who would keep himself shut in a bathroom for days, risking his health to hide his feelings and self-pity to keep Dan’s unaffected.

The lover who has gone away to his parents to escape him.

_ The lover who didn’t reject, but got rejected. _

At that point Dan can’t keep the floodgates shut and the tears cooped up any longer, and so his prickling eyelids fly open to meet the bleak covers. Wetness wells up and begins to pour, salty on his tongue and freeing in a way, but mostly a reminder of how failed he is.

The velvety, heavenly pillow is soaked and only his sobs shake him by the time he’s overcome by tiredness and sleep again. Pain, and only pain, runs through his veins.

_ Clearly, at this point, I have proven myself incapable of loving him. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry -not sorry- for the cliffhanger!  
> :( and sad Dan


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw food, crying, mild sexual content (all in different parts of the chapter..)

A couple of days have to go by, and many nights filled with nightmares about Dan, before Phil gains enough courage and words to ask his mum for advice.

The wind howls, rattling the windows. Kath stirs the tea in the bright yellow kettle, the delicious aromas escaping into the open air. With her son going back home in a couple of days she does want to treat him well and dote for a while longer, and he really does appreciate that.

They’re wearing matching blue jumpers to ward off the cold, knitted by his auntie from the south. Comfy and comforting, Phil feels even more at home wearing it, snuggled up on the sofa while his mum hums a childhood-familiar tune.

A tray of biscuits has been placed in front of him. He takes a careful bite, politely avoiding the dreaded cheese, before speaking up.

“Mum? May I… ask for some, um, advice?” he asks timidly, hiding his hands in the bright sleeves and forcing another bite of crumbs down.

His gaze flicks up in time to meet his mother’s, once she pauses. “Ask away, my child. What about?” she urges, placing the kettle next to the platter. Snatching a biscuit for herself, she sits down next to him, clasping his hand gently when he glances away again.

A small nervous smile appears on Phil’s face, despite the gnawing beneath his ribs. “It’s… It’s about Dan.”

Then a fleeting look of mingling shock and understanding passes across her face. Her hand squeezes tighter around his long trembling fingers, the warmth radiating through the thin wrinkles that clad hers. Crystal like ice, fragile like tears, his heart cleaves open and his mouth begins rambling.

“We- we got into this argument a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit dumb, in how it played out, and the aftermath, but.. I’ve liked him for a long time -longer than you may think, mum- and everything involving him acting promiscuous, deliberately teasing me, which he told me was true, that stung a bit, when nothing came from it. But then rejecting my advances but continuing to pray on my attraction… It- it got to me. It really did. I felt used; hurt.”

He pauses for the slight inkling of a breath. “After the fight the whole atmosphere was really  _ weird.  _ As- as you’d expect. But right as we were beginning to go back to normal, while still pushing out boundaries a little, he told me he just wants to- that we should just be friends.”

The bile rises in Phil’s throat, then.

_ go back to being just friends _

He clasps both hands around his mother’s, trying desperately to push the damning thoughts down. His forehead clams and he can feel her eyes on him, narrowing worriedly. 

“And that wouldn’t be a problem. Not at all. That stung a bit, yes, but...” he continues, raising his voice a bit on the high notes. “It’s just he, uh, still sent mixed signals afterwards. We cuddled one night and he began kissing me in his sleep-” A blush tints his cheeks at the memory, so he clears his throat. “-whispering about how he loved me. With my name. I found that very strange, because that’s so detached from what he’d said when he was awake... And he is still  _ staring _ . That hasn’t changed.”

There’s a small pause where he finds himself out of his depth. Kath still holds on, handing him another biscuit which he gratefully takes.

“You’re at a loss of how to approach him about both your feelings and his contradicting words? You’re worried it’ll go like the first time?” she utters gently, thoughtfulness painting her tone.

The light dances in her grey eyes, a true comforting shade that permeates his soul. Pointy ears twitching, she sighs with parted lips and then goes in for an impromptu hug. Phil almost clambers to her, melting into the embrace, tears brimming his eyes. He feels numbed, almost snatched out of breath.

“I suggest you ask him how he’s feeling; how he’s doing. No matter if it’s casual or if he’s doing something you’d deem unusual, Philip. That will show him you care,” she says. Her breath tickles his ear, instilling the help, comfort, closeness, and he melts further into her motherly arms as she speaks. “Then simply be blunt. Ask him why and how and every other relevant question beneath the sun. Tell him directly how you feel; something I can’t decide for you.” 

A tender hand comes up to wipe his eyes. He nuzzles further into the hug, burrowing his face in her neck, her exhales and inhales slowing his heart as they breathe chest to chest. He feels like a small vulnerable child again, but in a good way; she’s just calmed him.

Then, tongue heavy in his mouth and voice muffled by her shoulder, he whispers: “Thank you, mum…”

Kathryn smiles. “You’re welcome, my child. Simply stay strong, and you’ll get through. Both you and Daniel may be stubborn boys, but you’ll persist and pull through. Together, like you always have.”

Phil hopes earnestly that his mother is correct, even if she always is.

“So, about my dreams…”

⁂

Time without  _ him _ doesn’t pass any smoother. Dan can’t, at this point, even utter Phil’s name without bursting into short bouts of sniffles. Or long ones, if he sees his picture. Or full on sobbing, if he deep dives into his failures and their memories.

Everyday tasks stretch on endlessly, craving each drop of energy he has in his body. Working becomes near impossible, and so for a while he’ll only go out into the highlands for an hour at a time, keeping clear of any emotionally loaded places.

There are many of those. 

One night, marking a week since Phil’s absence began, Dan tries once again to make himself dinner. All his other attempts have ended up burnt, and cried over.

The dusk colours the room and the sky outside the same golden hues, the empty fields glistening red and gold because of the soft snowfall atop. The breeze runs like a river of air across the open lands, smacking against the trees and walls, and smattering on the windows. The noise keeps him company, filling at least some of the hole in his chest.

The smell of stir fry and spices runs havoc in the room. Shuffling along the counter, he stays clear of anything he can knock over.

Dan will never say he’s even close to being as good of a cook as Phil, but at the very least he can make himself a healthy, delicious meal every once in a while. Even Phil typically compliments his stir fry. 

Cutting carrots and keeping a careful watch on the oil in the pan, seeing as a stain on Phil’s hidden fox sweater would give him away, he suddenly jumps as the timer rings, telling him the noodles are finished. He fishes them out, knife placed down, and throws them in the pan.

Once they sizzle, he finishes up the vegetables and dump them too. The smoke swirls up from the stove, dancing along the roof. The pepper and red pepper flakes tint it a deliciously strong spicy and savory. No matter how much he enjoys that, it still feels like each moment of existence is dulled. 

In the heat, his already flushed and tear-rimmed face colours itself pink.

Finally sitting to eat, he pokes around the food and eventually swallows a couple of bites down. It’s not long, however, before the lonely single set of dishes has him sniffling. 

The rest of the food goes straight down the trash, despite him knowing Phil wouldn’t like ingredients going to waste. 

After bursting into tears once again, Dan finds himself facing the closed door standing between himself and Phil’s bedroom. The tears still flood his eyes, running across his cheeks in unstoppable waterfalls.

He hesitates, fingers falling off the knob.

Phil might not be here, but it still feels invasive. Sure, he’s not going to touch any of his personal belongings, except for the covers, and they often cuddle together- which is no problem at all no matter how many covers are touched. But still… 

What will Phil do if he finds out Dan is a hypocrite? What will he do if he finds out he’s a failure and an indecisive lovesick fool? A friend who lies and cries about the repercussions? Sleeps alone in his bed to feel his lingering warmth, comfort, and smell in spite of all of it? 

When he finds Dan feels the same and does pray on his feelings, too scared to admit his own?

When he’s omitted to his request, fallen out of love out of respect?

Because who can even love someone like Dan after he’s behaved like this?

_ Screw it. _

Light from the hallway reaches in behind him like long arms, casting his shadow upon the wooden walls. They follow him as he moves soundlessly across the floor, except for his sniffles.

The bed, unused for so long, secretes dust as he collapses on it, hands balling into fists around the soft, thick fabric. The sounds from his dried, tired mouth become muffled as he presses his face into the pillow.

Floral spikes sting his senses. The smell is pure Phil, despite his absence.

In the silence, he curls up around the blanket, cradling it like a physical body, drawing in the heat it emits. His rocking slows, and the tears stop.

Still, he wishes him here. Wishes his rough chest against his, his tingling lips grazing his own. The heat of his body replacing the blanket. 

That’s all Dan dreams. Swishes of hair in his face, hands roaming, and fingers curling up his own hair. Wet kisses all over his tepid skin, sparking up unknown sensations. Tingles run him over, as Phil’s big but dwarfed, smooth palms go from intertwined with his own weatherd ones to the crevice in his back.

With great care and love, he feels them grasp, tug, and he lets out an involuntary moan, bucking into the mattress. He can’t see, eyes pressed shut, nothing but his imagination filling his thoughts and the scents building up in his lungs, but he wants nothing more than to just  _ be _ .

In the heat, and the validation he feels, Phil’s hot breath tingles on his neck, telling him all he had said out on the cliff. His mouth is everywhere; everywhere.

His body is everywhere; everywhere.

Dan is unable to breathe, then.

After going from cuddling comfort, to lusting and short of breath, he sinks into shaky sleep with ‘Phil’s’ arms around him, his blue eyes grazing his body. His care emitted from each inch of his skin, each word of his mouth. His love blessing the world with each breath. His brilliant mind fully knowledgeable of Dan’s truest feelings, his deepest secrets.

_ hypocrite,  _ spits in his face, echoes beneath his closed eyelids despite his brain being asleep.

A truth he can never have, now. 

_ hypocrite _

He can never tell him he wants it, he’ll never be brave enough, despite being able to whisper it into the darkness. 

_ hypocrite _

Not when he’s already told him he doesn’t. 

⁂

_ Darkness has fallen upon the world. Dan’s deep, brown eyes swim with all its mysteries, filled to the brim with magic and wonder and beauty. His body, tan and freckled and curved, the most gorgeous it’s ever been and the most gorgeous on earth, sweats and shudders beneath his. A wide, shining smile splits his face, breaking up the blemishes. A single dimple shines through, deeper than the oceans. _

_ They lay in the wet and dewy moss, Dan underneath Phil. Bodies pressed together in all their naked glory, pure love pouring into and out of Phil’s veins. His heart beats for it, and his skin prickles with lust. _

_ He wants Dan. All he’s ever wanted is Dan. _

_“Phil- I love you, Phil.” Dan whispers in gasps between boisterous_ _laughter, his hands running from Phil’s chest down to his hands, hanging slack by his side. As he grasps them, his chapped pink lips clasp around his jaw, his whispers raising his hairs. “By Branwen. I. love. you.”_

_ He can’t help but laugh, too, once the kiss stops running him totally crazy. It’s infectious, like everything else Dan does so flawlessly.  _

_ All he’s ever wanted is for Dan to be happy. _

_ Feeling bold, brought on by Dan’s own chutzpah; fearlessness; courage; he brings his fingers to rest on Dan’s hips, leading Dan’s hands with them. With the sound of Dan’s giggles following him, his own tongue poking out of his mouth, he lets them roam and drag from his sides to his stomach, the warmth of his skin glowing. _

_ The chubbiness, his curves, is splendidly attractive and wonderful to the touch. Just touching him like this, indulging in all of him and all that is his beauty, makes Phil’s heart burn, his mind reel, and all of him jitter. _

_ And while he does, Dan’s dirty mouth runs its course, his fingers grasping at the forest of dark tangly hairs on his chest to work against the pulling of the pleasure.  _

_ His breath comes up short when a mischievous glint appears in Dan’s eye, and then he has to quip for air when he full on flips beneath him. _

_ The swell of his plump ass pressing against him, the softness of his thighs where it ends, the dark toned muscles on his back, the deep dark hole etched out in the middle of them, his curls falling over the sweaty nape of his neck, his high yet raspy voice laughing and complimenting him from out of sight... _

_ “Heaven!” he groans, quaking like an earthquake shakes the ground they lay on. “Dan, you’re so fucking pretty. Dan. Dan, baby. So, so fucking pretty-” _

__

_ Dan’s lungs seem to give in, his whole body deflating from the compliment. “T-tell me. P-phil- Tell me what you find pretty…” _

_ Leaning forward, palms placed flat on the moist earth, Phil places a heated peck on his shoulder blade. “I love this part. Of you. And you.” He can feel the content sigh passing Dan’s lips, and his obvious, radiant smile is clear as day in his mind. _

_ He kisses the nape of his neck, being careful not to swallow a mouthful of his chocolate hair. “I love this.” he whispers into his ear, before moving his face into the crevice. “This, too. Love it. Love all of you.”  _

_ Phil’s hardening groin pressing against Dan’s skin and flesh when he moves back makes them both shudder. Dan moans, then, bucking into the ground as if he can’t control himself.  _

_ “Damn- Phil, that’s-” _

_ Phil’s not sure how he’s controlling himself, either. Except he really just wants to praise Dan. Make him feel loved; make him feel like he deserves it.  _

_ Like he can love, too, and maybe this is just one of the ways. Showing him what he does to Phil without trying, by just being himself. By just receiving the praise, and giving his gratitude back; loving him. Truly. _

_ Making sure nothing but his breath touches Dan’s skin, he leans in close to his sacral, moving even further downwards as he breathes out his words. “Love this. Love this. Love you, Dan. I really do.” Then he leans back down, laying his cheek on the small of his back, entranced by the way it rises when he inhales. _

_ They take a pause, simply the birdsong above and the drops of dew hitting the ground breaking the silence around them. Faint light filters in through the tall trees, lighting Dan’s skin on fire and casting long mystical shadows over them. _

_ A sigh breaks Phil’s throat, breaking his barrier. Once more the need for loving becomes too much. Appreciation overflows his mind, his hands, his all.  _

_ One finger traces along the curve of Dan’s right buttcheek, Phil lifting off him for a second, making Dan whine from the lack of touch. _

_ He chuckles to that, like it’s his hearts tune. “Love this, too.” he sing-songs in a deep tone, drawing it out for long enough that Dan whines again.  _

_ In response his hands grasp his strong shoulders, skillfully flipping him back around. Despite the shocked look on his face, Dan soon bursts into laughter again, which Phil silences with a gentle, sweet kiss. Despite not being rough, it’s needy and craving, in a sophisticated way, his urges controlling each movement, each twitch of his limbs.  _

_ Then Dan reaches up, his hands trailing through Phil’s ginger hair, pushing the glasses off his face in the process. The ground chaffes their knees and thighs at the force, but it’s nothing to mind. He drives them together with the pure force of his arms, lifting off the ground, as if that’s even needed. They gravitate together, always a pair of magnets. _

_ Just as Phil proceeds to let Dan’s hands move further down towards his hips, his own arms cradling him, their mouths still connected… a flash of lightning blows light into the sky and the meadow, filling his whole sight with white, stinging air. _

_ Eyelids falling shut, Phil feels even the inside of them clam, just like his forehead, in response to the heat. _

_ And when Branwen opens them for him again, Dan is gone, and the canopy is dark, the ground below it barren and empty for miles. His skin is cold and covered in icy droplets, arms still cupped as if to remind him of what he held, but is now lost. _

_ No stars dot the sky, the skyline itself being invisible.  _

_ Short of breath and irritably confused, he flies from the ground with a pounding heart. He stares down at his hands for a moment, flexing them. Dissolved. Dwindled. Disappeared. _

_ Then sobs grow louder, pounding harshly into his eardrums. _

_ Phil views the area all around him, swiveling on the spot and shuffling his feet. It’s not curiosity that sparks his instincts to go haywire; it’s the worry, the fear. The anxiety that Dan is the one crying, that something has happened to him-  _

His eyes fly open again, brimmed with tears and his arms tangled dangerously in the sweaty covers. This time they’re sweaty for a multitude of reasons. Phil’s mostly concerned for the one where Dan’s in danger, however.

That was a real spike of worry shooting through his chest.

And now, as Phil’s throat dries out and his cheeks too, all he can think of is comfort, found in Dan’s arms, his embrace. Knowing his psychic dreams have repercussions doesn’t help. All that means is that Dan can be in real danger.

The second wave of worry that washes over him, then, becomes too much for him. The blanket flies up and away without a struggle, and his bare feet hit the cold floor.

In a near rush he fumbles for his glasses, wanting to at least regain some of his senses before he goes to find him. Then, not a single care in the world about his bareness, he walks across the floor and pushes the door open.

Phil stumbles out, and then, after a few seconds, his mind does too.

The carpet beneath his bare feet, the distance between the walls, the dark but distinguishable layout; it all gives the house away as not being his own home. It washes over him then, that there won’t be a Dan at the end of the hall, no Dan to cuddle up with, no Dan to console, no Dan to finally tell how he feels. Properly.

Sadness settles beneath his eyes, his sockets heavy. With regret and heaviness he drags himself back into his childhood room, closing the door as quietly as he can in his frustration.

Going home will be a big relief. At least that’s what Phil hopes, as he collapses on the mattress again, no arms around him; no Dan-shaped lump under the covers next to him; no Dan-warmth on his chest; no Dan-lips on his; no words and no ears to tell I-love-you.

He misses it all. Misses him; them. Misses loving him, and his newfound courage better allow Dan to see that he can be loved, and can love.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw crying, food

For the first time since winter descended, the snow that fell the night before melts away before the dawn, and no new flakes fall from the still-grey skies. With a lack of a cold breeze and no snowflakes kissing his lips, which would make them even more chapped, Dan actually ventures outside during a gap in his crying.

His reappearance, of course, is only motivated by Phil’s plants’ need for water.

They deserve their care, each drop of water he can supply, especially after such cold, harsh conditions. Even if Phil isn’t the one tending to them.

Each type of plants has their own section in the garden. they grow within a cross-section between a crumbling stone wall overgrown with moss, and an oak fence. Just outside it a ginormous tree stands tall, the closest to the house out of the circle of trees. It’s just far enough away that sunlight actually reaches through the windows and into the garden most times of day.

Perennials, such as thyme, sage, and lavender grow in adequate terracotta pots. Since Phil needs a lot of them healthy and strong for his cooking and his tea, Dan is extra careful to not drown their soil.

To the left of them water lilies are set up in adorable, perfectly sized waterbaths, adorned in small colourful flowers. A radiator at the base controls temperature, which they’re lucky for: otherwise they’d be sitting in ice and not water. He makes sure the radiator works and is set at the correct temperature, then studies their pads.

Afterwards, once he’s made sure no unwanted spots have begun to grow on them, he moves onto the vines snaking up the wall of the house.

An English Ivy grows along the same row as unspecified Wisteria, the hemp vine, and Vitis Vinifera. Their mostly bright leaves sparkle in the faint lights set upon them, hanging like overgrown but proud royals off their homebuilt racks. Racks he himself built.

His breath shows his unsteadiness. He feels almost uninvited, like he’s crashed a party. As if his skills are unwelcome and not good enough for Phil’s needs.

He knows that’s not true, but he can’t help but feel like his worth has gone into the negatives.

Finally Dan reaches the Cacti, leaving his favourite out of that odd bunch of prickly friends to last, to really savor the moment. Once he reaches Prickly Pear, an Opuntia that looks suspiciously like an actual pear, he feels warmth in his chest, despite his need to cry.

The cactus Phil bought for him, in his honor, something he surely has never deserved. He let him name them, and approved of it, even if it’s a bit unfortunate of a name…

Though their leaves glisten, he feels they may need some extra attention.

“You seem to thrive here, despite the breeze.” he laughs dryly, pushing the tears down and swallowing hard. “Phil has decided to leave the two of us alone here. How rude of him!”

The statement is only half-true, but Dan can still feel his arms shake as he waters Prickly Pear, one hand stroking their spikes. He feels damn dumb, despite usually talking to plants and animals, something that instills both of their spirits with calm due to his forest nymph abilities.

Most likely has something to do with him wanting to cry from his own words.

“Oh well… I think that’s just enough for you today.”

With the plants all but neglected, Dan wanders back inside, closing the creaking back door behind him as gently as possible.

He can feel his eyes go moist again, irritated and red, stinging from all of his crying. He tries desperately to wipe them dry, but quickly fails and lets them overflow. Drops reek and shatter on the floor, wailing sobs bounce off each wall, unchanged to his numb, adapted ears.

The urge to scream claws through him, and so knowing the only remedy, he sunters off to Phil’s room. He tries his best not to feel guilty about it, with how much he’s done it at this point.

⁂

Regret thankfully doesn’t wash upon Phil immediately after he leaves his parent’s house.

Though as the sun trickles in through the clouds when dawn comes, and the wheels of the car audibly whirs beneath its metal body, the buzz returns in a form of dread. Unlike before he doesn’t feel completely defeated, even if the inkling of heartbreak still lingers, because his mother’s words have actually consoled him a bit. Still, he’s scared, if only a little. 

The sun barely brushes the land once the cottage comes into view. It feels good to be home, even if he does love his family more than anything else in the world. Except maybe for Dan.

He loves Dan, and he knows the burning in his heart will stop at nothing to let him be told so.

A blush is surely apparent on his face when he disembarks from the vehicle, and he thanks the driver in barely more than a grateful ramble of words, but they seem to understand. 

With no more than a glance back, he walks down the long driveway, crossing the hill and walking around the trees. He skirts around them, the dark bark bristle and crumbling in the cold wind. Shivering, he pulls his jacket a little tighter around his torso. He’s glad it didn’t snow here during the night, or he’d be way gone. 

No sounds, no light, escapes the house. It’s almost eerie to watch, even if Phil usually doesn’t do the watching, as he comes upon the fasade and finds there seems to be no welcome home.

He’s unsurprised, however, seeing as Dan’d either be asleep or out woking at this hour. Not heeding Phil’s warning, if going by the second option.

Yet he decides to be quite once he enters the garden, sliding the door open with as little fuss as possible, and sliding his shoes off with barely a hushed whisper falling off his lips. 

Carrying the bag behind him, Phil stalks the corridor from the entryway. The carpet bounces beneath his mismatched socks, each step springing with familiarity and a sense of home. With a light push Phil lets light simmer into his presumably empty room, coated in dust and left undisturbed after his absence being so long.

He’s wrong. 

He’s wrong, and he’s never been more glad he is.

The sight in front of him takes him aback; takes his breath away. 

Suddenly his heart is pounding really fast. The blood rushes in his ears, a whirlwind swirls in his stomach.

Dan’s hair is tangled atop  _ Phil’s _ checkered pillow, his pink lips parted as he breathes slowly and quiveringly, his eyelids glued shut and unaware of even the bright light spilling into the room. He seems content with being wrapped in Phil’s covers, and Phil feels an equal level of contentment burst in his chest at seeing him there, even if he wishes he could be snuggled up in his arms, too. 

He decides, using good judgement, to not wake him. He’s still terrified that if Dan finds out he’s seen him do all of these things in his sleep, he’ll freak.

Though that may just be a predispositioned viewpoint of his own. 

Phil still remembers the touch of Dan’s lips on his chest, his heavy weight around him, his voice whispering his name, and it holds him put for a moment. The harsh edge of the doorway has bored into his side by the time his gaze breaks from the sleeping form and he swivels on the spot. 

Letting the door gently fall slightly shut behind him, Phil leaves the room with a lighter air in his lungs and a faint smile on his lips. He places his carrier outside his room with only two thoughts running his mind: _lovable Dan,_ and _feeling_ _bittersweet._

Today might be a better day than he thought. Today may even build his hopes, and his courage.

_ Thank you, Branwen…  _ says the whisper of a content sigh that passes between his lips.

⁂

Flashes of white fills Dan’s vision, his body stirring beneath the covers. He feels both heavy and drained at the same time, like he’s cried his brain and body dry, but the empty space the tears left behind has been filled with rocks.

When he’s finally able to force his eyelids open, the ruckus of last night falls upon him. He shoots up from the bedding in fear, while still cradling the bedsheet and pillow in his arms. 

A cold rush spikes through his muscles and runs up his spine, refilling his lungs with icy air. The room seems untouched, left like when he fell asleep, but something still lingers in the back of his sleepy mind that worries him. Even if just a smidge. 

The checkered blue and greens fall from his body when Dan stretches, his arms and bones groaning in protest. The moment the fading smell of Phil leaves his vicinity he whines, though ever gently and it stifles quickly by a pout.

Despite the silence and still darkness, black and grey and swimming with emptiness, a sense of disturbance travels through the air, and it grips onto his insides with an iron fist.

Once Dan feels awake enough he slides off the bed, the comfort slowly running off his body, and the lack of warmth on his skin spiking bouts of goosebumps. While he slept with pajama pants this time, his shirt got lost some time in the night. Though he has no memory of when or where, he finds it quickly enough in the mess of fabric.

He tries his best to make it look acceptably unkept and unused, and then he turns away from the bed. 

Dan slips out through a gap in the door, marveling in the quiet of the house. Phil’s meant to come home some time later today, and so his mind stays on what he needs to make presentable. What he needs to clean to instill a sense of normalcy in their messed up life. 

Then his foot makes contact with something soft, the object letting out a defeated puff and sigh, and all his thoughts travel to the source of it. Dread, pure dread, circles within, and his bloodshot eyes go wide before he can even force them to look down.

_ A duffle bag. A duffle bag has been placed outside Phil’s room. _

_ Phil’s duffle bag. _

His mind catches up quick enough, overpowering his erratic heartbeat.

_ Phil’s in the house. He’s home. _

_ Phil’s been inside his room. He’s been mindful and hasn’t placed it inside his room, knowing that’d make noise. Knowing that’d wake me up.  _

_ Phil saw me sleeping in his bed. _

Before the tears can even begin to fall again, Dan catches his breath in his hand, smacking it across his slack mouth. He knows he’s screwed up, and the greatest horror is that Phil won’t mention it, or even realize that he has changed his mind on them. Then he’d have woken him up, or crept into the bed, like old times. 

If Dan hadn’t been such a fuck-up, then Phil would still love him, and he’d have gotten a second chance. 

The sound of footsteps draws his attention, but almost too late. His ruffled appearance is barely able to be altered before Phil comes into the hallway from the living room, a small smile on his face and a knowing look in his clear blue eyes.

Despite how kind his expression is, and almost forgiving, Dan still feels a blush creep onto his face. He averts his gaze once Phil stops in front of him, terror and shame boiling in his gut. He’s uncertain if he really wants Phil to mention it, or if he’d rather melt into a saucy puddle on the floor right here and now.

“You’re up!” Phil exclaims, with an even wider smile. Dan wishes dearly that the strain in his voice is a figment of his imagination. “Come on, I’ve prepared some snacks for us, before dinner.”

As Phil leads him away, the tickle of his palm against his is at the forefront of Dan’s mind. It’s shortly followed by the realization that it must be past midday -which is a surprise because it’s the longest he’s ever slept, and must all be because of crying himself dry-, and the wave of both disappointment and relief washing through him.

The snowless fields still glitter in the sun, visible and vast outside the windows. A small breeze trickles in from the living room; a window opened by Phil lets in the cold air and refreshes the whole atmosphere.

Dan sips on a full vase of water while Phil rambles on about his time with his family, a sense of genuine normalcy filling some of the hole within him at the same time. Simply being in Phil’s presence while he does something as simple and domestic as arranging fruit into their bowls.

Eccentric, as always, Phil has them placed in patterns of nostalgic characters and symbols. For example, a bright Pikachu -although not in the perfect colour scheme- smiles from Phil’s plate, and a Flareon curls along the edge of Dan’s.

Dan doesn’t miss the flash of worry on Phil’s face when he barely picks at his food before stuffing his face full, trying to erase any reminiscence of disturbance. 

_ Phil should never worry _ , he thinks begrudgingly, _ especially not for me _ . Then he takes another sip of the cold water, feeling it slosh down his throat and clear his dehydrated orifices.

He’s not sure if he’ll be able to fix whatever they’ve had. He’s very uncertain Phil even loves him anymore, if it even got  _ that _ far.

But as the seasons seem to shift, Dan knows one thing is true. He can always trust Phil to make everything better, and greet him with a warm welcome and a warm meal.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw food, crying, self harm / anorexia implications (very vague)

The atmosphere has been tense, and stiff. But Phil feels the comfort slowly shifting, sifting back into their life without ever truly having left. It has only been buried beneath the earth, beneath their tired, thrilless smiles and broken hearts.

The main difference comes in the form of Dan, and his mannerisms. Even after having been home for barely 24 hours, he sees the love of his life as more timid and cooped up, and his appetite seems to have been diminished. 

While Dan leaving work to the last minute, and executing it in splices of time, is none of his business, the worry still appears in his chest, clearly apparent in his own eyes and glances. The worst of it all is that Dan’s not eating as much as before, usually barely picking at his food, even if he still dishes out heartfelt compliments regarding Phil’s cooking.

It’s as if his heart is in nothing anymore, and as if he’s lost a bit of life, a touch of the urge that keeps him up and going every day.

His heart burns at the thought, and so on the third day home, Phil watches Dan with careful eyes when he saunters out of his room at ten o’clock. The breakfast stands on the counter with steaming spirals rising from the surface, and in his own humble opinion it's one of his most delicious creations since Dan’s birthday last year. 

January has brought with it a new spark of creativity, with his birthday so near, but also a certain glacial undertone. 

“Morning!” Phil smiles, chatter eagerly bubbling up to his lips. Dan simply grumbles in response, barely meeting his eye.

He pours Dan a cup, and then breathes in the odor of his own. Lavender, as always, and fresh out of the garden. Before he forgets, he turns to Dan, the sun dancing on his skin. “Thank you for taking care of my babies..”

“Hmmph-”

“I really am grateful, but aren’t I always? Could I even do anything without your help?” he muses, mostly into thin air. Then he reaches for another cookie, his nimble hands unable to keep away from his own delicious bakes.

Between bites Phil finds himself rambling, telling anecdotes and so on, occasionally bumping their hands together or commenting on how great he thinks something Dan has done is. Dan doesn’t touch his own, though, and so the hole in his heart is gnawed bigger and rougher and deeper by the mere self destructive thoughts he’s sure he must be experiencing.

When Dan once again skirts around his attempt at getting him to eat, the weight in his bones becomes too much. He cares, and there’s no exception where he’d say he cares too much.

“Won’t you just eat something?” he asks, careful -at first- to not snap. “At this point you’re really toeing the line of starvation, and that’s no good for your health.”

There’s a mumble he doesn’t catch. “What’s that?”

“...nghnnm…”

“Please speak up, Dan.. I can’t deal with any of your childish antics right now.”

Still Dan tries to avoid his eyes. “...do you evh…” he mumbles, forcing the vague words out before clamping his mouth shut into a strained, twisted grimace.

“Daniel, seriously-” Phil begins, the heat and absolute ridiculousness of the impending argument teasing his nerves. He sets the mug down and crosses his arms, feeling each muscle in his body tense from exhaustion and annoyance. “Dan, whatever reason you have to act like this, it’s not vali-”

“I said, why do you even care?!” Dan rips, his voice sharp shards of glass flying through the thick air. He pushes off the counter and swivels until he faces him, fists balled and his knuckles whitening. “Why do you always have to think everything and anything I do in this house is your goddamn business!?” 

At his accusing words, Phil feels his own face grow pale. “Dan, I don’t-”

“You do!” Dan shouts, with what seems like tears glimmering in his eyes, which flips his stomach and forces nausea to the surface.

“So what if I give a shit about you!” Phil hears his own voice shout, almost foreign to his ears with how angry it sounds. “You’re my friend, am I not allowed to do that?”

“It’d be fine if you didn’t poke your nose around in  _ everything _ -”

Venom rolls off his tongue, oily and slick and maybe not carrying the correct choice of words. “Fine! I’ll just leave you alone! I’ll leave this pathetic, cooped up life, and find myself a new friend to care about! From this point onwards, Howell, I don’t care about you! I’m not your friend! Hear me!?”

Taking a visible step back, stumbling over his own feet, a gobsmacked Dan sucks in a breath with his eyes blown wide. Immediately, like an electric current, a surge of regret seizes Phil’s body up and washes through his mind.

“I-” Dan’s voice quivers, barely more audible than his panting and the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

“You- I wasn’t-” Phil tries, but his throat has gone dead and dry. “Dan, I- I didn’t mean-” 

Avoiding the hand stretched out towards him, blinded by his welling tears, Dan jumps another meter back at the sound of his own name. “Y-yes you d-did Phil..” he hiccups, choking on his sobs and wails that claw at the inside of his lips. “Y-you do mean th-that-” 

Grasping for his tunic, but failing, Phil wants to rip his own hair out to stop the pain searing in his chest. “Dan, please listen to me. I don’t mean any of that- I- I don’t know what came over-”

“Don’t- Don’t make excuses!” cries Dan, wiping his tears away with such anger and force that all Phil wants to do is banish any emotion from the world. He doesn’t like seeing him like this, this hurt, but yet he has caused it.

“Dan, please-”

“Don’t!” he wails to stop Phil’s pleading, and then he scutters off, quick as the wind and elusive as the darkness. A thunderstorm on bristle steps scurries after his soles, tearing anything in its path down with anger and disappointment.

The lump in his throat does no good, and so he sinks to the floor, the only thing pounding in his ears being Dan’s sobs. A cry of doom, and a cry of failure, pestering his each and every mistake. This may’ve been his greatest; the greatest of them all. 

⁂

The door slams. It slams loudly, rattling the walls and their own crumbling foundations.

Phil has snapped, again, and again it’s Dan’s fault. At least in his own view. He shouldn’t bother him, he shouldn’t be such a bother.

If Phil didn’t care so much for him- no, if he didn’t have such an imaginary problem with Phil caring, he wouldn’t have gotten him angry. He wouldn’t have pushed such thoughts and feelings of him leaving, such fragile and delicate ideas, to the surface.

He shouldn’t have been so stubborn, not overreacted. 

He shouldn’t have broken his heart before, and his own to go with it, jeopardizing their relationship. 

Dan falls to the floor, tears rebuilding in his eyes and burning away at his lashes like acid. It’s been a few hours since he last cried, and so the sensation feels foreign for the few seconds as it begins. Then his wretched sobs echo through the moon room, and he presses his face into the velvety sky to dampen them. It easily soaks up the wetness, the stars jumping after each crystal clear droplet.

He knows the sounds will, regardless, travel out to the rest of the house. He wishes they won’t and he wishes himself alone. 

Even if his greatest wish is to be comforted by the one he loves.

Time passes like this, wet lines eroding his skin, and his sighing chest pressing into the carpet. 

⁂

The night has almost fallen upon the house, and the silence is etched into the very walls. The horrible sounds of Dan’s sobs have stopped echoing, which he regards as a decent sign. A sign that he’s safe to act.

Phil feels absolutely horrible. Like a horrible friend, and a horrible person, but mostly he feels bad for Dan, and like he shouldn’t have shouted at him. He regretted the words the moment they flew out of his mouth, like they did despite his own courage and determination to make Dan feel loved. To feel okay and comfortable. 

He’s certainly diminished his believability in that department, now, even just a smidge, and so that’s why he doesn’t hesitate when he knocks on Dan’s door. Firmly, yet gently, barely a whisper of a sound but determined to rectify.

There’s no response for a few seconds, until the gentle drag of feet against rough carpet scurries into his ears range.

Dan doesn’t open the door, but Phil can feel his presence, the press of his warm, heavy body on the other side. His whole being, just like the frame, weighs him down.

To stop the simmering guilt, he decides to speak first. “I.. I was wondering if you’d like to consider coming out here and listen to my apology?”

The silence buzzes and claws at the scabs and moles and freckles on his pale skin, but there’s then a gentle sigh followed by a creek, making Phil’s face split into a small, grateful smile.

Dark circles are ever apparent beneath the beautiful eyes etched into Dan’s tired, blemished features. His eyes are bloodshot in an almost uncomfortable way, and his curls fall in a sweaty mess upon his wrinkled forehead. Wrinkled in worry, as if he’s worried Phil will shout again. And he can’t have that. Absolutely not.

“I’m sorry I shouted. I was really worried, and though I know that’s not an excuse, I hope you’ll at least take into consideration whenever I point out something like that.” Phil whispers, resisting the urge to cup Dan’s cheeks and brush the wrinkles away with the pads of his fingers. “And I do promise that I still am your friend. Always. Can you forgive me for everything that says otherwise?”

Dan grimaces. “I can.” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “And I will. You’re forgiven,  _ Phil Lester,  _ my bestest friend.”

“May I invite you to watch a movie with me, as a part of said apology?”

This time Dan smiles properly, though sadly his dimple doesn’t appear. “Only if I get to choose.”

“ _ Please _ don’t accidentally pick a cheesy half-porno, like last time we came to this ultimatum.”

“Of course not!” Dan splutters, falling fully out of the doorframe. He firmly places his hands on his hips, a serious frown on his face, and a pout growing strong. “That was an accident!”

Phil barks out a laugh as Dan’s cheeks flush bright red, his blush almost flaming. It makes him look even a million more times pretty. “Accident? Suuure.”

“It was, you absolute spork!”

“You love this absolute spork.” he bravely replies, and though Dan quiets immediately, the blush snaked up his neck is still visible. 

The lack of protest makes Phil feel braver than he has in days, even hours. Reaching out a hand, relief and tingles rising through his bones and up the length of his arm when Dan takes it, he feels relief wash over him as well.

Drawn to the cabinet with cd:s, they part ways once Phil has lead them into the living room. He places his bum on the sofa with a sigh, watching as the screen whirs up and lights up the darkness around them. 

Dan follows soon afterwards, sinking into the sofa crease on the other end. Having him out here in their shared space is a relief, but the space is also necessary. He’s sure neither of them could handle being so close; physically, specifically.

A different sort of jitter spreads through Phil’s bones as the title screen displays Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a movie he’s only seen tidbits of. 

It’s not excitement for the movie. What it’s for? It’s yet too foreign to tell so from.

From practically thin air, Dan has conjured a bowl of buttery popcorn, enticing him with all its delicious delights, and despite what he knows he refrains from commenting on how Dan shouldn’t use his magic in such reckless ways.

Hours seem to drag on, despite only minutes passing with each breath he takes, everything a blur dancing fast and slow at the same time. The action scenes send his heart through the roof and blow his eyes wide, but the excess of obnoxious hetero smooching makes him want to roll his eyes.

His clammy hands travel across the rough fabric around him, nervousness apparent. In the flashes of light he sees his own shadow, and the -now- middle seat of the sofa sinks beneath his heavy, resting body.

He’s drifted, he knows, and he also knows it’s dangerous. In the corner of his eye he can see Dan’s form, face lit by the screen, and his parted lips shows he’s entranced by the action. Entranced enough so that he’s also moved a couple of steps towards Phil.

At a particularly shocking part of the movie, glass shattering and wooden splinters flying practically off the screen, Dan jumps with a soft shriek. Right into Phil’s arms, where he collapses.

Then Phil feels his whole body tensing up with stress, his sweaty forehead searing and the moisture descending across the rest of his soaking skin.

Soft curls fill his vision, blocking his sight and filling his lungs with musky spirals and smells. Dan’s scratchy scalp tickles the button point of his curved nose, his head bobbing upwards as he curls closer into Phil’s arms. The closeness spikes his every sense, and that means his whole existence suddenly only consists of Dan. 

_ Dan Dan Dan. _

He can't focus on the sounds of the fight, reduced to a buzzing in the back of his head. All he feels and lives is Dan’s short breaths pounding against his own ribcage, and his beautiful whimpering.

Skin burning as Dan’s hands clasp around his wrists, bringing them closer together, he relaxes for a swift moment.

Dan jumps away again at a loud sound echoing from the speakers, his whole head tilted towards Phil’s face which has twisted into a confused expression. They’re leaned in close, but not quite touching like before, and there’s a space of silence in time where Dan sits still and calm in front of him.

Shadows flash across their faces. For a second he breathes, and then he doesn’t. The movement on the TV is all but remembered.

And then Dan’s chapped lips are on his, sucking the rest of the air out of his dry, deflated lungs.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw sexual content

The moment is brief, so short he barely registers it. Their movement is minimal, and then they’re gone again. Not enough to savor, but enough to miss; to long.

Once the sound of feet disappears, following Dan, Phil’s thoughts catch up again. Each one breaks through the barrier of fears and love, and it hits him full force.

Dan kissed him. Dan just kissed him-

_ His lips are soft yet chapped and rough against his own. Despite the briefness, they move oh so delicately, and each quiver of flesh etches into his soul. Mint swirls from the edge of his tongue darting across his lips, to the back of his throat, all and entirely Dan. _

_ With no time to close his eyes, Phil sees the way Dan’s dark eyelashes flutter, his lustful brown eyes flaunted only briefly between the slits of his eyelids.  _

_ Just the edge of his mouth and mostly his bottom lip is tasted, the forest nymph careful enough as to not let him know exactly what a proper kiss with him would feel like. Depriving his mind of such pleasure doesn’t feel like a tease or a curse this time around, however, unlike the last time Dan seized his lips so delicately.  _

_ This feels like a beginning, not like a restriction or the end of something good.  _

_ A second or two of silence passes again, as Dan’s face comes to a rest millimeters from his. A haze covers his mind, lust crawling in his bones, and each word he’s ever wanted to speak aloud push into his throat. Then fear seems to settle into Dan’s chocolate eyes, and he flees the room before Phil can say a thing. _

Phil lets the pads of his fingertips graze his face, lightly touching the heated speck were the kiss landed. His scalp tingles, exploding with them, at the touch, as if savoring and remembering the exciting sensation.

Like sparkles, it creeps and runs across the rest of his skin. His tummy does a signature roly-poly, and his heart thumps hard and fast to the beat of a drum.

The memory of Dan scurrying away afterwards, scared and afraid, pushes to the forefront of his mind. Instinctively his gaze flashes up to where his back disappeared from view, and the gut-feeling he gets makes his mind up for him.

Before long he’s stood in front of Dan’s door once more. The raspy wood and the nooks in the corners stand out to him, unique as the man who just kissed him.

With a gentle knock he asks, and with an even gentler grunt comes his response; he’s welcomed in.

Dan’s back is turned towards the door when he enters. He’s lost his shirt at some point and the dark green cover has slid down to his hips, exposing most of his cavity and his toned back. He takes off his own clothes to match, shuddering slightly in the shade of the moon.

Crawling up next to him in silence is easy for Phil. Keeping his overwhelming thoughts to himself, and his arms itching for comfortness out of reach of the warm body next to him? Not so much. And so he doesn’t try, especially not when Dan pulls towards him like a magnet.

In a surge of heat and sudden lust, the closeness and tingles caused by his skin on his sends his whole body into override. Dan seems to sense so, too.

He whimpers, and then his brown eyes fly open, revealing the true need for them both to-

“Phil-”

Before he can stop himself, Phil clasps his torso with his clammy hands, pulling them together. “Y’know, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.” he grates out, throat so utterly dry and deprived he can barely speak. “Would you mind hearing it, right now?”

Shaking his head and matching his tempo, Dan straddles Phil’s hips with elegance and finesse, a purpose in each twitch of his limbs and each roll of his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t even mind hearing it all night-” he pants, lightly grinding down as if he thinks this’ll be their very last night.

The breathless grins that flash across their faces, matching and strong and bold and brave, sets his heart right in his chest after it nearly beats out of it.

The furthest they’ve ever gone, and the best they’ll ever have, is all he thinks, as Dan’s mouth clasps onto his before he begins rocking back and forth again.

He wants to make Dan feel more loved than he could’ve ever imagined. Right. Now.

In a combined effort, one hand each pulls off Phil’s underwear, and then Dan loses his own. Grinding down hard, Dan moans at the intense contact, at the chafing of their skin against each other.

“I. Love. You.” Phil exclaims, then, as proud as he could ever be. It comes out loud and scratchy, regardless, because the jolting of their hips and thighs against one another distracts him greatly. “I do, Dan. I love you.” he continues, once he stops panting moderately. “Love you.”

If Dan’s corresponding movements are any sign, the words dancing on his tongue mean the same thing. He’s just decided to express them a different way, after so many years where such opportunities have been lost. 

⁂

Face flushing, Dan dares not move when he wakes with his head on Phil’s coarse, hairy chest. He dares not breathe, seeing as the forest rises and sinks with each gust of air that passes across his lips, and he barely glances away in fear he’ll move his whole head with it.

Dan knows how they ended up like this. His arms around Phil, Phil’s arms around him, and his legs halfway to still straddling Phil’s hips.

He’d been so timid, and then Phil’s boldness shone through, pulling him out of the darkness. The first kiss, as always, had been of his own making, but maybe not something to put into his repertoire -unless Phil deems it worthy of such fond praise-.

Phil. The unearthly elf who’s breath tickles his hair and whose lavender scent mingles with his own like the perfect image of a summer scene.

He’d praised him, called him beautiful and gorgeous with each quivering breath, each word that rolled of his tongue, and each jolt of his hips as Dan rode him. 

The sex part of it all doesn’t even fascinate Dan all that much, beyond it being Phil’s first time -Dan’s fourth, mind you- and still handled this way, this expertly. Rather, so does Phil’s seemingly urgent, life-threatening need to make him feel.. appreciated. Deserving. Loved. The very least he can hope is that it extends into the morning, and beyond, into life itself. 

Since they’d fallen asleep from exhaustion, the untreated stickiness and the chafed, red skin around Dan’s pelvis soon becomes uncomfortable, increasing in aching and distress the more he wakes. 

Eventually it feels like someone’s sandpapering Dan slowly, and a seering glue is hardening all the way from his bellybutton to the small of his back. Most uncomfortable, though, is still having Phil’s cum inside him so many hours later, no matter how euphorically it got there.

With a whimper and a graze of his lips on Phil’s beautiful pale skin, he successfully wakes him. 

A bit groggy at first, Phil doesn’t seem to understand what Dan’s getting at, no matter how clearly he speaks and expresses himself. Once he’s put his glasses on, however, and dipped beneath the covers, the situation at hand becomes crystal-clear to him.

With not much more said than  _ I’ll take care of you,  _ Phil leads Dan into the bathroom with careful steps, stopping and cradling him each time he whimpers or stumbles.

Having Dan hower over the bathtub, arms levitating him from any surface, Phil gets to work. Dan’s careful to relax when he wipes him down, and not get too excited when Phil’s big hands go inside him for the first time, with a towel and a wipe. Destroying his hard work of getting him clean, immediately afterwards, wouldn’t be very welcome. 

Starting him a bubble bath, Phil lets Dan soak in the tub for a while, and he’s glad. The warm water softens his tense muscles and insides, the soap and the water mixture sloshing around him and 

Light dances across the surface, colouring the rising bubbles with sheens of gold and rainbow. When the last one pops, the sun has risen so high the whole room is able to flood in the warmth of its rays, and with some mild difficulty he gets out. 

After putting on the set of fresh clothes waiting for him, Dan struts out into the house, feeling refreshed himself and more energetic than he has in weeks.

Phil’s welcoming face greets him, a pot of tea boiling on the counter. He seems a bit shy, but so does Dan.

Despite the circumstances, this is the first time in years they’ve woken together after sharing a bed. The initial intimacy and the lasting implications makes his heart flutter. 

He’d rather give up everything else in their world than never get to see Phil’s deep blue eyes gazing upon him when he wakes, that tired half-smile of understanding dancing on his face. 

⁂

It has to be said, he thinks. I have to tell the truth… Dan’s bright eyes swim with uncertainty and unspoken words, and so he can’t help but to break the barrier himself. He wants this to last. He needs it to, and the journey of life will only start if someone sets out on it. 

“I’ve loved you since we met…” Phil mumbles, feeling the heat scorch his insides at the mere thought of the memory.

Dan’s unsteady smile tells him nothing but agreement. “I wish I’d have been brave enough to love you since then. I’m just a massive idiot who always seemed to think you were too good for me, or something similarly stupid.” he says, and all Phil can do is nod. He loved him since then, too, but was never brave enough to make a first move or even 

“I’m sorry I pushed you away.” Dan repeats, arms cradling him. “I should’ve remembered you’d never break my trust or heart like.. the others did. I’m sorry.”

With a shake and a squeeze, he tells him he doesn’t have to keep on apologizing. “Never. Never ever.”

After letting go, Dan leans his shoulders against his, gratefully accepting a cup of tea once he’s handed one. “Can you, um, tell me again? Tell me what you love about me, in a situation where I’ll have an easier time remembering.. that.” It’s an easy enough request.

“Your dimple. Your hair.” Phil says between sips. “The cavity in your back, and the muscles surrounding it. Everything from the shade and feel of your skin to the way your toes curl when you’re excited.” 

Flushing, Dan jumps away from him as if scorched, his splutters almost unintelligible. “I meant- Not-” Phil’s own face splits into a sly grin.

“I know what you meant. And you do that, too, even when you’re excited about things outside the bedroom.” 

His words stop Dan’s half-hearted protests, and his blush depletes a bit, and so he continues talking. “I adore your stubbornness, and how excited you’ll get over animals and video games. How wide your smile can become when you gaze upon the wonders of the world, or the way your eyes smile and crinkle when I’ve made you your favourite dessert.”

A dimple appears on the side of Dan’s cheek. “I love your dimple, how everlasting it becomes when you’re fond and content.” he says, and pokes it to emphasize the point. “I love how it’s mostly about me. I love your skills with and your care for the forest, and the magic that runs through you at every given moment. The best parts about you are the ones that are everlasting, and the ones you evolve with, and through.”

Opening the cupboards, Phil lets his fingers run across their cutlery while the other hand clasps another’s hand. “Our order and disorder; how seamlessly you’ve integrated our lives. The presence of you is one thing, but the presence of your presence, and soul, is another. I see it at each breath and turn I take, each object Take the bowls, for one thing, or your memorabilia.” 

“The colours you’ve brought into my world, black and white and grey and beautiful all the same-” Phil whispers, leaning in close to Dan’s ear. “-are, by Branwen, I swear, a testament of your patience with me, your kindness, your expertise. Your ‘flaws’, your jealousy, your neediness, your stubbornness, even your teasing and self deprecation-- like my typical ineptness at expressing myself fully with words, they’re a part of you, and I love them like I love you. Each part of them is wonderful, except for when they stop you from feeling like you are.” 

A pair of strong arms fling themselves around Phil’s shoulders once he stops listing all his reasons, catching him off guard and pushing him backwards into the counter, rough on his spine. He feels the touch of warm tears dripping onto the side of his neck, where Dan’s buried nose tickles his skin.

“Phil- Lester-” Dan gasps, the fondness strong and slick on each syllable. “That was- that’s everything, I-”

“You-?”

Lips burrowed against his collarbone, his musky smell dancing up Phil’s nose, and his curls tickling his chin, Dan takes unsteady breaths to steady his racing heart. Phil’s own takes a flip.

“I don’t know how to express this any other way- unlike you, it seems I’m finally at a loss for words.” Dan sighs, arms tightening their grip around him, and his typically intimidating, towering height covered and squeezed into his arms. “The monologue, the things you’ve said about me- they’re the most wonderful things I’ve ever heard. Phil, I- I love you.”

Like honey, a warm smile runs upon Phil’s lips. He’ll never get tired of hearing those words, not like before, and he’ll never tire when repeating them back. “Love you, too.” 

⁂

They talk. They reminisce. And in each space in which they do not, they exist and they kiss. Once or twice Phil comments that they’re making up for lost time, and lost actions like those. Silently, Dan agrees, because he feels that way, too.

Despite all the heartbreak he’s had on the side, he’ll never ever doubt again that Phil is the one he loves, has loved since they met, and will love in each life until time ends.

“I promise to stay with you forever. I’ll always be by your side, and you can trust in me, from this day forward.” he finds himself saying, firmly and confidently, once it’s clear enough in his mind. “I want to, very very much. And so I will.”

Laughter rolls across Phil’s pink, plump, almost swollen, newly pecked lips. The lips Dan now knows tastes like sugar, and will be his own for a long time coming. The laughter floods his lungs and veins, refilling his being with new energy. 

“What did I say? Always stubborn, Danny. Always.”

“Spork, I’m  _ your _ stubborn, now.” he retorts, and despite the grammar discrepancies, his chest bursts with butterflies when his one and only lover brushes their hands together. The lover who found the courage to obliterate his fortuitous rejection. 

With a raised eyebrow and a smirk, Phil nods. Then, after sipping on his hot drink once more, he steals Dan another flavoured kiss; another I-love-you. Dan’ll get used to this. He’ll have it no other way. 

He’ll be the lover who found his way, learned to love again, and to be loved.

They will be The Lovers, in possession of the most lucky card of the deck. With magic they’ll conquer, and with love they will live, and ‘til the death of time itself they’ll stay strong and loyal and comforted in each other's arms.


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw food

_ 5 months later _

Behind Phil, Dan sighs appreciatively, his arms wrapped around him squeezing a bit harder. “Why do you have to be so good at cooking and not even let me taste it?” Dan whines as he flips the pan again.

Phil agrees, but only silently, and only to the part complementing his good cooking.

“You may have a piece before we eat,” he says sternly, despite the small smirk on his lips. “If you’re good and sit down.”

That sends Dan flying off Phil, his arms retracting as if he’s been scorched by him, a hot piece of coal. The clatter in the living room and final silence afterwards almost pushes the bubbling laughter into his mouth and off his tongue, as well as it gives him a confirmation. 

He leaves the pot unattended, dangerously enough, and scoops two pieces of chicken onto a small plate, which he carries into the living room. 

Snatching it out of his hands before he may even do more than give him a peck on the cheek, Dan scoffs it down in seconds, even though he’s being respectful in his own special way and not touching the food until Phil’s left the room. 

“By Branwen, you’re always just as ridiculous…” he mumbles to himself, and continues to stir.

Once the dish is complete he arranges it into a flowery pattern, which he knows now that Dan will internally scowl at. He loves eating, but ruining Phil’s art in the process can’t be rectified- in Dan’s own words.

Still, they sit in mostly silence and dig into the stir-fry, Phil being the only one of them careful enough to not spill anything onto the sofa. Occasionally laughter will ring through the house, Dan’s firm and rough hands clasping onto his shirt or pushing him away, making the situation intentionally more dangerous.

As always, they’re fools. Fools without a care in the world.

⁂

_ 3 years later _

His smile is as radiant as the sun, and all Dan wants to do is kiss it bigger, brighter, wider.

The arched branches above his head sends twisted shadows running across the altar and the aisle, but they only weigh the mood in. In the moonlight shining from above, Phil’s ginger hair glitters and his skin glows. 

“Beautiful.” is all that rolls across Dan’s lips, because no words can truly embody what Phil is. Always. “You’re just-”

“Yours?” he smiles, and then his blue eyes crinkle while laughter bright as the stars in the black night pushes up from the depths of his stomach, a tidal wave of joy and appreciation. Fondness. 

With everything from the superficial to the divine and supernatural that concerns Phil, Dan only knows it as one thing. Beautiful.

Beautiful like the soft and long fingers, clad in smooth pale skin, that gently thread on the edges of his palm. “Come on, Dan.” Phil’s voice softly speaks. “Walk with me.” Then, as Dan’s starstruck gaze seems to catch his attention he says; “Thought you had wanted to elope with me since forever?” 

And he can’t help but laugh at his words, carried by such a beautiful voice, because the truth is they’re both equally as dumb. Equally as smitten.

“I’m on my way, you spork!” he laughs, skipping to close the space Phil’s created between them. “You’re the one who’s not moving anymore.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Love you, too.” 

⁂

_ 10 years later _

Sun snakes around the room, specks of dust flying everywhere as Dan lets go of the last box. The wide windows reveal the bright garden outside, brimming with flowers and tangly bushes, which Phil has been gushing about for weeks to anyone who’ll listen. It’s a real upgrade, and Dan himself is proud of his partner, sure that he’ll be able to fill it with the brightest colours and anything else he needs for the most amazing, difficult concoctions.

They’ve been looking for upscaling for quite a few months now, still keeping the cottage as a holiday house, nostalgic monument, and an heirloom for their future kids. And the one they have now. Bree.

A crash down the hall turns Dan on the spot, a surge of fear spiking into his chest. 

The worry turns out to be overdone, however, when he finds their 5 year old rolling on the floor with laughter. Her blue hair flames, contrasting with the dark carpet, and her splotched, silver-toned skin glitters with tiny stars when the light falls upon it. 

“What.. are you doing, Bree?” Dan asks, eyebrows raised at her face splitting grin and peculiar giggles. He loves her to the moon and back, but she’s very obviously inherited her other fathers’ quirkiness.

“Paint. Everywhere!” she shrieks, providing him with no clues.

Dan walks outside, sunshine cascading across his face and bare skin. The warmth sucks out his breath, and so does the sight he finds. Phil is sprawled out across the driveway, face planted into the soft earth of the empty flower bed. Clumsy, as he’s gotten to know better and better in the twenty years since they met. Specks of dust have tangled in his ginger hair. 

Out of his arms, unfortunately enough, a bucket of paint has fallen and cracked open upon a tile. A flood of bright red soaks into the ground.

“Faking a murder so we’ll have to flee our new neighborhood before we’ve even moved in, you absolute spork?” Dan jokes while he helps Phil up from the ground. His big and smooth hands slot into his own with perfect ease, and so it takes no more than a few seconds before he’s standing next to him, even if Dan’s palm had to go red with it. 

After lightly pecking his cheek, Phil shakes his head and recovers the bucket. Dan tries desperately to avert his eyes from his partner’s curved bottom, but not so subtly, he fails. Phil doesn’t mind, however. He wiggles his hips before rising, grinning delightedly at Dan’s flushed face. 

“No, just preparing so we can play floor the lava again for dinner-duty.”

“Well…” Dan drawls, with a cheeky grin pulling on his lips. “Then you’ve already lost!”

Eyes blank, Phil’s creased eyebrows furrow before flying up. Then his gaze flickers down to their feet, following his pointed finger.

“ _ Dammit _ !”

“Don’t swear papa!”

“Sorry, Bree- How could you!” he shrieks, disappointment flashing across his face. His soles are planted firmly on a splash of red paint, while Dan’s are not.  _ His _ boots are unscathed. “That’s unfair, Dan!”

Laughter bubbles in his throat, and fondness glazes his vision. Arms instinctively wrapping around the elf, bringing him closer, he giggles as Phil’s pout juts out of his face. “Not. Fair.” Phil grumbles again, this time voice and breath cut short when his partner nuzzles his face into his neck. 

“Not fair?” Dan whispers, the darkness and smells of Phil’s shampoo zoning him out. One of these days it’ll get to his head.

Another wet and sloppy kiss is planted upon his scalp, rousing his curls. “Not fair.” his lover says, proudly but delicately, his voice gravely yet warm. “But I love you, still.”

“Sure you’ll still love me after you’ve had to cut one million of Bree’s carrots into tiny tiny squares? And I’ve just had to watch on with a smile on my face, knowing I won’t even have to take out the trash afterwards?” 

“Is that a challenge?” 

Dan lifts his head, meeting Phil’s dangerously blue eyes with a mischievous glint. “If you make it one.”

“Oh, how’d I do that?”

“Y’know..” he begins, almost putting his own hand to his lips, but he doesn’t have to continue. Phil’s sweet mouth is on his again, lingering and melting his every thought into a mindless mess. Thoughts Phil has gotten to know inside and out.

Okay. It really has gotten to his head, hasn’t it. But he enjoys this existence, the easy banter and the overtly joyous flirting thrown between them. Living with the knowledge that forever and ever on, they’ll be together. 

⁂

_ 20 years later _

The roof above glitters with millions of stars. Blurs filled with shades of greens and blues and colourless grays flash them by, the rough calluses on the bark of the trees embodying each one.

Dan’s soft footsteps echo in front of Phil, the only sound disturbing the peace of the forest around them, and his clammy hand pulls him forwards through the woods. They pass boulders and creeks, the water skipping silently, and the moss beneath their feet sinking into the earth that gives it life.

Despite how he’d told Dan it was a bad idea leaving Bree and Clancy home alone, he can’t help but marvel in the beauty of the forest at night, an opportunity that has been lost for a little while.

Whispering as it swirls through the canopy, the breeze greets its new visitors with a chill. Phil can’t help but smile to himself, having the knowledge of eternal welcome. In a pair of secure arms, and the world itself that cradles them both, Branwen watching from above. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and taking time out of your day/s to read this! I can't even begin to express how grateful I am.. your encouragement has been a blessing
> 
> Taking me almost a month to finish writing, this project for Transdimensional_void (and all of you!) has been the most exciting to date. :P 
> 
> My one takeaway: write more magic au's, Tarenh!
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated, and know you can always find me on Tumblr/Twitter with the same username 
> 
> Bye/Hejdå/Hasta luego! <3


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